In His Eyes
by Ma Vie Merveilleuse
Summary: How does one pick up the pieces and begin anew in the face of despair? An original telling of the Mirai timeline from Trunks' departure for the past. Rated T for language. Trunks/OC.
1. Prologue

_**Author's Note:**_ I've been reading fan fiction for a long, long time, but this is my first real attempt at writing anything substantial. Excepting, of course, something I wrote years ago, but that was under a different alias and should be forgotten as quickly as possible ^^. This story has been in my mind since I was in middle school. Considering I'm now a college student, it's safe to say that my Mirai tale has been percolating for a while. For that reason, it's very, very dear to me. I would love constructive criticism, but any hate comments I might get are going to be completely ignored. This is my story, my version of how things happened, and I really don't care about flames. That being said, I love reading reviews, so please, please take a moment to drop a line! Ah yes, and I ought to mention that this is, in a way, a song fic. Not inspired by a song, no, but rather a perfect complement of a song: "In His Eyes" from the musical _Jekyll and Hyde_. asks that authors don't post lyrics, but I encourage you to look the song up yourself! Enjoy!

**PROLOGUE**

She sat and watched the rain falling outside, her cheek resting on the window pane. Her hand, unbeknownst to her, was slipping out from between the pages of the novel in her lap; she would have to flip around the book again and figure out where she'd left off. It would be the third time that afternoon. There was just no concentrating.

"I still don't know if we should be up here," sighed the turquoise-haired woman sitting across the room whose brow had been permanently knitted for the past half hour as she tried to match several varieties of miniscule screws to their proper holes in the wireless radio on the table before her. "It feels like we're just asking for trouble."

The girl on the couch turned her attention from the window and brushed a few tresses of wavy ebony hair behind her ear. "Bulma, it's fine. Seriously. I haven't seen the light of day in weeks. And besides, it's rainy…they never come out in the rain…" She trailed off. That was a lie. Nonetheless, the dark-eyed girl wasn't in the mood for staying undercover today. It was spring, and in spring, you're supposed to be able to enjoy the rain. That's how the world worked, with or without two bags of bolts running around blasting the living hell out of anything that moved and some things that didn't.

"Yes you have! Your house doesn't even have a basement," Bulma replied with a wry smile. "You see it every day. Unlike yours truly, whose complexion is getting a little too pale for her own good."

"Exactly," replied the young girl with a triumphant smile. "So you should be enjoying this." And with that, her eyes went back to the thunderstorm outside, to the miniature lakes forming thanks to the complete decimation of the city's drainage system. And pavement. And any form of noticeable infrastructure. People Bulma's age got used to it after a while. As for the girl herself, she'd never known anything different.

Her mind wandering away from her work, Bulma's gaze settled on the girl across from her.

"He just left yesterday, Ada. You know we haven't exactly perfected this whole time travel thing; the return trip is almost sure to be, in this timeline, two or three days after the takeoff," Bulma explained.

Ada whipped her head around, a defensive half-glare on her face. "I wasn't even thinking about Trunks! What makes you think I was watching for him? I'm watching the rain! I told you I ha-"

"Kami, girl! Take a chill pill!" Bulma exclaimed, giggling a little. "I just assumed th-"

"Well, I'm not," Ada huffed, flipping around through her book as she tried to find her spot.

"Okay, okay." Bulma just smiled as she inserted a tiny screw into the radio. Sometimes, Ada actually _did_ act like her mother, and it was always a little entertaining for Bulma. To watch a girl who seemed to be the child of neither her mother nor her father channel one of them…it was good for a laugh.

The phone rang suddenly, and both women jumped and screamed in unison before realizing what it was. Attempting to catch her breath, Bulma reached over and slowly picked up the receiver. "C-Capsule Corporation, Bulma speaking."

"They fixed the phone line!" exclaimed a woman on the other end, shock evident in her voice. "I can't believe it! I wasn't even going to call, but I thought I might try just in case…Wow! They actually got it working again!"

"You scared us half to death, Chi Chi!" Bulma panted. "I mean, I haven't heard the phone ring in a month…"

"Well, lucky me, huh?" Chi Chi asked. "Anyway, is Ada still there?"

"Yep. Sure is."

"Good. Can she just stay the night? The radio's just said something about the woods a half hour outside the city being on fire…they aren't sure what's behind it, but, well…" Chi Chi trailed off.

"Really?" Bulma asked, looking angrily at her own radio. "My damn thing won't even turn on. It's not like anyone's actually selling them anymore- at least I can't imagine they would- so I'm trying to get it going again. But are you sure you don't want her to just fly home after dark, like usual?"

"Well," Chi Chi began in a worried tone, "I just think it might be better if she waited until tomorrow. At least until after they figure out this fire business."

"Sure thing, Chi," replied Bulma. "Anyway, if there's a potential attack out there, I suppose Ada and I'd better get in the basement-"

"YOU'RE NOT IN THE BASEMENT? WHY _NOT_?" came a scream through the phone. Ada rubbed her temple. She had always wanted to measure the difference in decibels between her mother on normal volume and her mother on pissed-as-hell volume. Maybe Bulma had some sort of device that-

"It was your daughter's idea!" Bulma argued. "It's not as if _you're_ underground, Chi Chi."

"_I_ LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! _I'M_ SAFE!"

"Alright, alright. We're on our way."

"I STILL CAN'T BELIE-"

"Bye, Chi Chi," Bulma said, putting the receiver down and sighing in relief. She looked over at Ada. "You heard the woman. Down we go."

**xxx**

Some hours later, Ada, clad in a pair of Bulma's flannel pajamas, walked into Trunks' room and crawled in bed. She pulled the covers up to her chin and looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Disconnected thoughts flew through her head. She hadn't stayed at Bulma's in forever. Would she actually be able to concentrate the next time she tried to read? Garlic potato aftertaste was still hanging on in her mouth from dinner. She would be 18 in two weeks. The pillow smelled like him, like whatever kind of shampoo he used, like his cologne.

Ada smiled. She had made a point to stay away from him after Gohan died, and she'd done so. Yet she still knew how he smelled. She rolled over. She flipped over the pillow. Same scent. Ada sighed with defeat. There didn't seem to be any escaping it.

The day they had all said goodbye to him was the first time she had actually spoken to Trunks in months. They had always exchanged casual words here and there, and Ada had still made trips to visit Bulma when he was out. But they had practically been strangers for almost five years. Looking back on it, the whole idea seemed terribly strange. They had spent their entire childhood together. They were playmates and sparring partners. They had inflicted numerous bloody noses upon one another (on accident…mostly) and had gotten into trouble (usually when Chi Chi was watching them) too many times to count. They had been inseparable best friends.

And then everything changed.

After Gohan died, they both became different people. Trunks got some kind of attitude problem that, coupled with being an adolescent boy, made him absolutely intolerable to Ada. He had been a complete jerk of a kid. She, on the other hand, became a secret sort of girl. The usually talkative, sarcastic Son Ada nearly quit eating, went to bed before the sun itself did, and did absolutely no talking unless it was to scream at her mother, whose life had completely collapsed after the death of her son.

Ada squeezed her eyes shut. She never thought about back then. She wouldn't start now. Besides, she'd spent the last five years working on pulling herself out of it. Ada was now talking almost as much as she did when she was a child. She was back to stuffing herself at mealtimes (and still managed to keep her slim but solid frame, Bulma resented). She and her mother rarely fought, though Ada attributed that to her own acquired ability to keep her mouth shut coupled with her mother's having given up on molding the girl into exactly what Chi Chi wanted her to be.

Son Ada was still nursing her wounds. She figured she always would be. Yet, she had made it thus far alive and as psychologically unscathed as was possible for a stubborn girl whose brother, her best friend, had been murdered at the most lonely, awkward stage of her life, whose father had died half a year before she was born, and whose mother was, in most regards, her own polar opposite. The thought of it all brought a melancholy smile to Ada's lips. She was a fighter in more ways than one.

**xxx**

_**Postscript:**_ I know the prologue was slow, but I felt like, since Ada's an original character, it was needed in order for you to sort of begin to get to know her. Please R/R! There will be more soon if anyone seems to enjoy it!


	2. Breathe A Sigh

**CHAPTER 1**

Bulma opened the cabinets of the makeshift kitchen in the basement. Out of them she took two dainty teacups and saucers, pieces of her mother's old china set received as a gift at her parents' wedding. She couldn't remember the last time she had actually used them, but for some reason tonight seemed appropriate. Ada was over for an evening visit, and Bulma felt like girl talk needed to be complemented by girlish things- hence the flowery, delicate drink ware. Not skipping a beat, she picked the steaming teapot up off the stove and filled the cups, adding two spoonfuls of sugar to her own and three to Ada's. Bulma carried the saucers over to the kitchen table and set one down in front of the girl and the other in front of her own chair. With a relaxed sigh and a smile, she took a seat.

"What a week!" she exclaimed, bringing the teacup to her lips and sipping the steaming herbal drink. "I swear I didn't think it was going to end. I've gotten at least 10 calls in the last three days from people who need their appliances looked at. You name it, girl. Washers, dryers, radios, televisions…there was some guy who said he was having an issue with his hot water heater. I understand that we're lacking in repairmen these days, but honestly! I mean, I'm a genius! I make time machines, for Kami's sake, not…_electronics_…" Bulma groaned, playful frustration evident in her eyes.

"Did you take any of the jobs?" Ada asked, drinking her own tea. "This is excellent, by the way. Cinnamon?"

"I think there's a hint of it in there. I was getting tired of citrus-y tasting stuff, so I thought it was time for a change. Glad you like it. But, well, yeah, I took a couple of them. Not the dryers and microwaves, because, hell, none of us have those sorts of luxuries these days. But I repaired a few radios, and I looked at a washing machine. Couldn't do much for it, though," Bulma replied.

"Oh, I'm sure those people are just grateful for a hand. Help is hard to come by," said Ada, pulling one foot up onto the edge of the chair and resting her hands on her knee. Bulma opened her mouth to respond but stopped short as she looked behind Ada where a figure was emerging from the hallway.

"Well don't you look dapper," Bulma said with a wide grin as she surveyed her son. Trunks blushed a bit and looked down at his shoes.

"Mom, really…" he began. The dressed-up young man stopped in the kitchen and grabbed his jacket from off the coat rack. Ada turned to have a look for herself, unable to hold in a smile. "And here I thought the nicest piece of clothing in your wardrobe was a black tank top," she kidded, sarcastic enjoyment dancing around her words.

"No one can compliment a guy like you," he returned, smirking.

"Well, have fun. Be safe. You know all that. Bring her back and introduce me to her and maybe I'll forgive you for spending your birthday away from home," Bulma kidded.

"Sure thing, Mom," responded the lavender-haired warrior grudgingly as he gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek and headed for the stairs to the ground level. After Bulma turned around to look at Ada again, Trunks glanced back in their direction ever so briefly, trying to catch the look on Ada's face as he departed. Knowing that his pride wouldn't permit him to do anything less and therefore expecting him to look at her, Ada had turned her eyes from Trunks back to Bulma. He left, and she ignored him.

This was their routine. In the year since Trunks had returned from the past, the two had seen a great deal of each other. It was awkward, certainly. Neither quite knew how to act or speak around the other. The innocent adolescents they had been when they last communicated were long gone. Ada likened it to this: two strangers see one another constantly and act like they know everything about the other without ever having formally introduced themselves. This was the predicament of Ada and Trunks. This was how they had lived for the past year.

Ada had always assumed that, whenever they began to spend time around one another again, things would go back to normal. Instead, every time they exchanged words, it was like they were wearing ornate masks that neither knew how to remove. No matter how hard Ada tried, when she spoke to Trunks, she could not extract the sarcasm from her voice. She assumed she must sound like a catty bitch to him. Likewise, Trunks seemed to have a permanent smirk pasted across his face when he talked to her. An almost arrogant tone came into his voice, and he could not shake it. Ada, he imagined, must think him a prick.

Bulma smiled as she contemplated the sudden cause for distance in Ada. She considered asking the girl a playful question or two just to jest in the fashion so characteristic of Bulma, but she quickly dropped the idea. After searching for a new conversation topic to pull Ada back into the moment, Bulma settled on the one thing that had dominated both of their thoughts for the past couple years and continued to do so:

"I checked up on the time machine today," she blurted out, rather more loudly than she planned. Ada's eyes snapped back to Bulma, and she smiled reflexively as she acclimated herself to the present. "Trunks should be able to head back by the time the androids arrive in the past." She sighed. "That is, if my calculations turned out correctly…"

"Well, getting it perfect isn't the biggest concern. Whether Trunks gets there before or after they've been activated isn't as important as his simply being there to help," Ada replied.

"I know; I just wish I knew enough about time travel to land him precisely when he needs to be. For now, letting the approximate amount of time pass in both our timeline and theirs is going to have to do."

"It's going to be fine, Bulma. Somehow…I know it will," Ada reassured, draining the last of her tea. Bulma returned the girl's smile, putting her cup to her lips before quickly pulling it away again.

"Oh! I can't believe I almost forgot!" she cried, smacking herself in the forehead. "I've got exciting news!"

"Okay, so spill it!" Ada said excitedly, leaning over the table a bit.

"Alright, so I don't know if you remember, but when you and Trunks were little, say, maybe…eight or nine…basically, before that last attack that caused all the irreparable damage to company property, Capsule Corporation was still carrying on this ancient tradition that my dad started. We had a ball every year, sort of a fundraising gala for whatever charity we picked, that the employees and their spouses, as well as quite a few of the city's corporate bigwigs, came to."

"And…?" Ada eyed Bulma suspiciously, her smile turning into a look of confusion. "What are you getting at? I mean," she cast her eyes downward, "there isn't even a Capsule Corp. anymore."

"But that doesn't mean we can't have a reunion ball!" Bulma said with glee, clapping her hands like a little girl who's just been told she's getting a pony. "Okay, so maybe no bigwigs this time- that's fine. But just the old employees, so we can catch up and, well," she admitted with a bitter smile, "have fun, like we used to, just for one night…" At that, Ada grinned.

"In that case, I think it's brilliant," she said. "So give me some details!" Ada cried, and with that, the two women began discussing every facet of the ball, delighted giggles and squeals (most uncharacteristic of both of them) included.

**xxx**

It was not, in fact, another hour until the beeping of the radio emergency alert system startled them back into reality. Breaking news about android activity followed, along with repeated urges for those anywhere within twenty blocks of 16th Street and Koa Avenue to head for cover. Both women turned to the radio, anxious scowls across their faces.

"Is the basement door locked?" Ada asked quickly, realizing only after the fact how ridiculous the question was.

"Yeah. We should be fine just sitting tight," Bulma answered, suddenly whipping around toward the door. "But _where_ is that _kid_?! Trunks could be anywhere in the city right now…" Of course, both Ada and Bulma knew that there wasn't a thing they could do about it. He would…he would just have to take care of himself. He could. He was an adult. As each withdrew into her own thoughts and worries, silence descended between them. The only sound was the static-ringed voice of the emergency broadcast announcer. Ada and Bulma sat like that for the next ten minutes, the former gripping her empty teacup desperately while the latter took to gnawing on her thumbnail.

Two things happened very quickly that made Bulma jump a foot out of her chair. Despite having tried to keep her strength under control, Ada accidently shattered the delicate piece of china she was holding. The sound brought her out of her thoughts and back to reality, and she looked in shock at the twenty or more pieces of porcelain strewn across the floor. Half a second later, the door into the basement was thrown open and two sets of footsteps, one heavy and quick, the other lighter and more reserved, resounded off the stairs and down into the room. Bulma and Ada stood from their seats, the force and speed of the motion throwing Ada's chair backwards onto the linoleum floor. In the blink of an eye, she was in fighting stance. She knew they would come after her sooner or later; they knew where to find her. She had stopped running years ago. Wasn't it inevitable?

Bulma, unsure of what else to do, steeled herself and threw up her fists. Like hell she would be going down without a fight. With an intake of breath, she planted her feet firmly on the floor and looked over at Ada. They were ready. Whatever happened next, whoever came out of the stairwell, they were ready.

**xxx**

_**Author's Postscript:**_ These first two chapters (or rather, prologue and first chapter), have been so hard to write! Starting a story is more difficult that I remember. Phew. But now I'll give you a little preview! No, I won't be divulging any info about the next step for Ada and Trunks…^^…but I will tell you that we'll be following them throughout various happenings in the future, through bits of history from their own pasts, and through Trunks' next two journeys into the past, including quite a bit about the year in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. I should also mention that I will be drawing plot bases from both the manga and anime and will not change anything from Toriyama's original storyline. I'm simply filling in the holes! Oh yes, and please R/R- I appreciate it more than I can say, truly!

I also want to throw in a big, big thank you to **Crecy**, my first and only reviewer thus far. I was absolutely delighted to hear some feedback. Again, thank you!


	3. Remember

**CHAPTER 2**

Trunks raced into the mostly-destroyed ground level of his home, holding his date by the hand and pulling her along. After nearly tripping over an old box, the young man darted for the door that led to the basement. His hand reached for the knob only to find the door locked. Trunks gritted his teeth and jiggled it.

"C'mon…c'mon…" he urged under his breath. Sniffles and frightened squeaks came from the girl behind him as he reached into his pants pocket for his key ring.

"Trunks," the helpless voice said shakily, "hurry up! W-" An explosion some half a mile away made her scream and wrap her arms around him. He grumbled in frustration. How in Kami's name was he supposed to get the door open with this girl on top of him?

After several more seconds, the purple-haired warrior threw the unlocked door open and began making his way down the stairs, his date's nails digging into his left arm as she followed suit. As Trunks set foot on the floor of the basement and glanced around, he saw his mother and Son Ada standing mere feet away, looking in his direction and poised to fight. Bulma, seeing her son emerge from the stairwell, breathed a sigh of relief and passed her hand over her eyes.

"Dammit, Trunks," she managed to say. "You scared us half to death."

"Sorry," he replied, catching his breath. Trunks glanced quickly over at Ada, whose look was a mix of relief, surprise, and anger. He tore his eyes from her when he heard the girl attached to him begin to sob. His date clutched ever tighter to him, burying her face into his arm.

"Oh, Trunks," she sniffled. "I thought it was all over! I thought we were goners!" Trunks looked down at her, a bit of a blush staining his cheeks.

"Well…" he started, somewhat unsure of what to say. "Looks like we made it!" He laughed nervously. At least their escape from destruction gave him something to speak to her about. In the hour preceding the attack, Trunks reckoned that he had come up with maybe ten words to say in response to all of her stories, comments, and jokes.

"Hey kid- go lock the door," Bulma told her son, picking her chair up and settling back into it before rubbing her eyes. As Trunks ran to do so, his date stood alone in the middle of the floor, surveying Bulma and Ada with, at most, marginal interest.

"I'm Louisa!" she volunteered as a smile rather inappropriate for the situation spread between her ears. "It's so lovely to meet you, Ms. Brief!" Turning to Ada, she paused to think of something to say. She settled with: "And Trunks didn't tell me that he had a sister!"

"Um…" Ada forced a smile. "I'm actually not related to him." _Was the hair color not a dead giveaway?_ she wondered.

"Oh! Well, my mistake," she said with a giggle. "Now that I think about it, I guess you don't really share Ms. Brief's girlish features."

"Yeah…ha ha…" Ada responded (_Flattery is one way to go about trying to impress your boyfriend's mother_, she observed with a grimace.) as Bulma, who stole a look at the demi-Saiyan, suppressed a laugh. The girl was trying so hard to smile that she was beginning to look like she was in pain. Trunks appeared again at the bottom of the stairs just in time for Louisa to make some more enlightening conversation.

"Wait a second- what's your name?" she pressed.

"Me?" Ada was somewhat taken aback by the girl's rather rude forwardness. "Son Ada."

"Oh!" Louisa squealed. "I thought I remembered you from somewhere! You've certainly changed a lot…but something about your face was driving me crazy! We went to school together when we were kids. Or, you and my sister went to school together. I'm a year older."

"Huh," Ada responded, unsure of what to say. Trying to be polite despite her surety of having no idea who this kid could be, she asked, "What's her name?"

"Mira," Louise stated matter-of-factly. "I'm sure you think I'm nuts for even remembering something like this, but I'm pretty sure it was you. My mother was absolutely livid!"

This peaked Ada's interest. "Oh? About what?"

"You don't remember, do you?" Louisa's face fell a little bit. "She must've said something to make you angry, because I'm almost positive- if I'm not thinking of someone else- you tried to beat her up!"

A rather long and extremely awkward silence ensued. Ada wasn't sure how to respond.

"Well anyway!" exclaimed Louisa, smiling again and pulling a chair up to the table. "I'm so glad…"

Ada had stopped paying attention. Louisa had indeed remembered correctly, and, for some reason, Ada recalled that particular experience as well.

**xxx**

_A small child, no more than seven years old, sat at the head of her bed with her knees pulled to her chest. She fingered her long, black hair and then rubbed her puffy, crimson eyes. She looked around her room; it was simple, but cozy, with construction paper, scissors, and glue strewn across the floor in one corner and various pieces of artwork as well as several photographs haphazardly scotch-taped to the walls. On the shelf to the right of the door were a great many books, mostly bedtime stories about sleeping princesses and ugly ducklings. A large, smooth, perfectly spherical gray stone sat on a small cushion at the very top of the shelf. When she knew her mother was nowhere near, the little girl would climb atop the shelf to get the stone. She would then sit cross-legged on her bedroom floor with the rock in her lap, rubbing it and staring at it, sometimes tapping it. This particular stone, she knew, had been in her brother's room when he was a child. She found it very difficult to believe, but it had supposedly belonged to her great-grandfather at one point. There was nothing special about it, she would note skeptically. Just a regular old rock. And yet knowing that it was somehow important made her curious enough to take it down every once in a while just to make sure it wasn't doing anything exciting._

_This evening, however, the child didn't think twice about the rock atop her shelf but rather rested her chin on her knees and squeezed her eyes shut. After the shouting her mother had done when the girl had gotten home from school, she figured there was absolutely no way she would be welcome in her home again. The child kept trying to take a last farewell look at her room but just could not bring herself to think of leaving it. She was fighting back another round of tears when the door to her lamp-lit bedroom slowly opened. As she looked over, she saw a tall teenage boy with short black hair step in, closing the door behind him. Gohan. In spite of everything, the little girl could feel her heart lighten a bit._

"_Hey there, Ade-o" he said quietly, stepping over to the bed and holding a plate out in front of him with a smile. "Warmed you up some pizza."_

_Son Ada sniffled but said nothing, so he set the plate down on her bedside table and took a seat beside her on the bed._

"_Mommy hates me, doesn't she?" Ada said, tears welling up in her eyes again._

"_Whoa now," Gohan replied, pushing her hair behind her ears. "Why would you say a thing like that?"_

"_Because she's never yelled at me that much before, not ever…and she said that there was no hope for me, and that I was gonna be like Daddy because I don't know how to do anything but fight and that…and…" The little girl collapsed into sobs._

"_Well why don't you start by telling me what happened?" her brother suggested kindly. Ada gulped down tears and looked over at him._

"_I hit Mira Ito today," she said without shame. The 'without shame' part was what had made Chi Chi twice as furious. Ada lamented that her mother simply didn't understand; the other girl had it coming._

"_You hit her?" Gohan asked, wincing. Poor girl. She couldn't have been expecting the force behind Ada's fist._

"_Before I bit her," Ada added quickly._

"_You bit her," the boy stated blankly, completely unable to grasp his younger sister's behavior. He rubbed his temple and sighed with a bit of disappointment coloring his voice. "Ada, you-"_

"_People treat me different," she cut him off, staring down at her toes._

_Gohan looked at her with pity. He wished he could tell her that whatever it was they were saying didn't matter, that she was almost certainly the most intelligent girl in her class and would get farther in life than any of them, that she was a terribly pretty child and was going to be gorgeous when she grew up, that they had no right to cut her down because she very well could be saving the world one day. He wanted to tell her all of these things because he knew them to be the gospel truth, but he also knew it would not help in the least. She was so young; she could not possibly understand such things. All she saw in the situation was that someone was mean to her, that she had defended herself, and that she was in big trouble for it. At seven, life just isn't fair._

"_They…they just don't know what to say," he said finally. Though substantially less meaningful than all of the other options, this one was still true. Ada was a unique girl with a very different personality that, despite her loving disposition, gave others a bad impression. Gohan assumed that her classmates knew, too, that she lived out in the middle of the woods with a mother that could frighten even the world's strongest warriors and a teenage brother who played 'daddy' most of the time. Besides that, the Son family didn't have a great deal of money, so most of the toys Ada took to school were hand-me-downs from Gohan._

_Ada thought on her brother's words and then on Gohan himself. After a time, she burst out, "Why does Mom fight with me? Why isn't it you?"_

"_Huh? Why would I fight with you?" he asked confusedly. Ada rolled her eyes as though everything she said were obvious._

"_Because we're brother and sister. It's our job," she stated. "That's what syllables do."_

"_I think you mean 'siblings'," he replied with a smile. "'That's what _siblings_ do'."_

"_That's what I said," Ada told him with a nod. He chuckled at her, which she ignored. "Anyway…you're my brother…and…" She struggled with her words. "…And I like you better as a brother than a dad."_

"_Yeah?" Gohan asked seriously. She nodded_

"_I only need one parent. Having Mom is enough," she sighed. Suddenly remembering the rest of the day's events, the little girl began to sniffle and fight back tears._

"_G-Gohan…will Mom…is Mommy gonna m-m-make me move out of the house and live in the woods so she can have another b-baby who does what she says and then have it live in m-my room and-"_

"_Oh, Ada," Gohan said with a smile, scooping his little sister up in his arms and sitting her on his lap. She sobbed into his t-shirt. "That's such a silly thing to say. You know that she loves you with all her heart. And she'll get done being mad soon. I promise." He planted a single kiss on the top of her head and proceeded to rock her back and forth until she had cried herself into an exhausted, peaceful sleep._

**xxx**

_**Postscript:**_ Thanks to Disney and the writers of _Lilo and Stitch_ for lending me some of the dialogue for this chapter. I'll be on vacation for the next week or so, but there will be an update or two or five as soon as I get back- I've already begun working on a couple future chapters. I'm really getting into writing this…I hope you enjoy reading it! As always, please read and review!


	4. Riding In Cars With Boys

_**Author's Note:**_ Thank you to **Draquia** for being my second reviewer and for being so thorough, and thanks to **CRdragonPyro** for the lovely review as well! I certainly appreciate any and all reviews, but specificity is really wonderful. Now, about the timeline. I assumed this would need to be cleared up at some point, but I wasn't sure if I would be doing it in the story or not. After thinking on it, I decided it would be less confusing if I just laid it out here. In the future timeline, Goku contracts the heart disease not long after returning from space and defeating Frieza and King Cold. In Trunks and Ada's timeline, Ada was conceived about one year after this. Goku, for this story's purpose, contracted the disease and died several weeks later; Ada, then, was born about 21 months after his return (Gohan was 8). Trunks was born in the year 766 of Toriyama's timeline, putting Gohan at age 8, so it follows that Ada and Trunks have an age difference of only several months. I see Trunks being the older of the two. If Bulma had heard about Chi Chi being pregnant, I have a feeling that somehow, simply because it would have been on her mind, she would have been slightly more careful in her extra-curriculars with Vegeta. To sum things up, Ada isn't the female, mirai version of Goten, she and Trunks are roughly the same age, and both were born when Gohan was 8. Phew! I'm glad I got that explained. But if there are any discrepancies with Toriyama's established stuff, please do let me know.

CHAPTER 3

_Leaning against the headboard of his bed, arms folded behind his head, Son Goku let out an exhausted, relaxed sigh and smiled. He hadn't had such an amazing evening in…well…honestly, he couldn't even remember. Goku looked over to the glow of light emerging from the bathroom door after hearing the soft singing of his wife. She emerged shortly thereafter, again cloaked in her small, baby blue nightgown. Flipping off the bathroom light, Chi Chi smiled at her husband and walked back over to bed. She climbed under the blanket and settled up against him, her head rested against his chest._

"_It's all just...perfect, Goku," Chi Chi said. "I still feel like you've only just come back to me."_

"_Aw, Chi. But it's been almost a whole year!" Goku replied happily, fingering a few strands of her hair. "You better start getting used to it. I'm not goin' anywhere."_

_She smiled. "Promise?"_

"_Of course!"_

_They sat in silence for a time, listening to the sound of one another's breath._

"_Chi Chi?" Goku asked quietly._

"_Hm?" Goku seemed to have a sensor that told him to speak exactly when Chi Chi began drifting off to sleep._

"_I've been thinking…" he began. Chi Chi opened her eyes. Her husband wasn't the type to choose speaking over sleeping without being prepared to say something of consequence._

"_And, well, Gohan's getting older, you know? He's really growing up."_

_Chi Chi lifted her head and looked quizzically up at him. "Well, yes. That's what children do, Goku."_

"_Yeah, I know. But that's not really what I was thinking about…" He looked down at her and scratched the back of his head. Silence again. Chi Chi felt her eyelids drooping._

"_I think we should have another baby," Goku spit out rather quickly._

"_Wait…what?" She sat bolt upright, her unblinking eyes focused directly on her husband. "A…_what_?"_

"_Oh, don't tell me you've never thought about it, Chi Chi," he said, looking up at the ceiling. "I mean, we've had so much fun with Gohan! Except for that time when he was with Piccolo, and I was dead, and…well, ya know…" Goku finished sheepishly._

_Chi Chi only blinked. "Well," she began in shock, "I guess it's worth thinking about." After a short silence, she smiled._

"_You know something, Goku? Lying here, talking about something like this- about our family- makes me believe that things are finally back to normal."_

**xxx**

After over an hour of waiting out the android attack until the radio signaled an 'all-clear', Ada found herself yawning from both boredom and fatigue. She, Bulma, and Trunks had spent most of the time listening to Louisa's stories (_How delightful_, Ada mused.), none of them finding it easy to actually focus on what the girl was saying. Instead Ada found herself braiding the ends of her hair and making silent observations.

_I suppose I might have given her the benefit of the doubt if she hadn't opened her mouth, _she considered_. He's never actually _dated _anyone before, so what does Trunks see in this girl? She's very pretty…maybe he has a thing for blondes._

Ada looked down at her own locks and smiled a little. _But she can't change hair color on demand._

"Well," Bulma said tiredly as the radio finished its all-clear message, "I suppose it's safe for you to go back out, Trunks."

"Oh…yeah, I guess you're right," he replied. "It's gotten pretty late, though…I should probably just take Louisa home."

Louisa's face fell a little. "Aw…if you're sure, Trunks. I suppose that's not a bad idea. Besides, if we both get a good night's sleep, we can go out for coffee in the morning!"

Trunks forced a smile. "Yeah, that would be…really great!"

Bulma and Ada watched the scene unfold, both of them terribly amused.

"We'd better get going," Trunks finished, standing up out of his chair. "Louisa doesn't live too far from here, so I shouldn't be long."

Ada yawned and looked over at Bulma. "I suppose I should get going, too."

"How are you getting home?" Bulma asked with concern.

"Well…you know," Ada said, glancing tellingly at Louisa so that Bulma would get the gist. "The usual." _I should've said, 'flying,' just to see the look on that poor girl's face!_

"Listen, girl, I know it's nighttime and all that, but I think it might be safer if you let Trunks drive you home," the former heiress replied.

"Oh, I'll be fine! Don't worry so much…you might just turn into my mother," Ada shot back with a grin. She wanted to say, "You couldn't _pay_ me to get in a car with your son and his girlfriend," but naturally kept that bit to herself.

"It's no problem," Trunks unexpectedly added to the conversation. "I'll drop Louisa off, and then we'll head out to the country. We'll just fly low and a little more slowly and keep the lights off. Mom's right about it being safer, I think."

Ada looked over at him and, for just a moment, detected concern on his face.

"I guess that settles it," Ada said, faking playfulness. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Of course not," he replied, genuinely pleased.

Bulma surveyed the two of them carefully as though searching for something and then smiled and gave them a thumbs-up. "Be careful, and call if you need anything!"

**xxx**

When Trunks got back into the aero-car and shut the door, Ada could tell, even in the darkness, that he was visibly embarrassed. Hell, she was embarrassed for him. Louisa seemed to have been after more than just a goodnight kiss; she had practically climbed on top of the poor kid. Ada couldn't be sure, but she also thought that the girl had given him a little pat on the ass as he turned to walk away. Embarrassing indeed.

Neither said a word as Trunks started up the car and again left the ground. Several minutes later, the stubborn Ada was still adamantly keeping her mouth shut. Ordinarily, she was all about chatting it up with people no matter who they were, but there was something about Trunks that drained her of all ability to speak. The fact that he hadn't offered any topics to talk about made her determined not to say a word. He would have to be the first to crumble.

He was.

"So," he offered after clearing his throat, his shoulders somewhat tense, "how are things with that one guy…what's his name?"

"Who?" Ada asked curiously, honestly confused by what Trunks was talking about.

"You know," he continued, "Masao, or something of the like?" He had known the name all along. Not only had he known it, it had crept into his thoughts some nights as he tried to fall asleep. There was no forgetting it, as much as he had attempted to put it out of his mind.

"Oh! You mean the son of one of your mother's old employees or whatever he was?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Mom mentioned that he'd asked her...for your phone number. She said he wanted to take you to this ball thing that Mom's planning," Trunks replied.

"I'm not really sure. He was a good conversationalist the few times I really talked to him, but…well…" she trailed off, not really caring to talk about the absence of her love life with him.

"What?" he insisted. Ada noticed that he seemed genuinely interested. Maybe he was jea- _No. Not in a million years, girl. You better drop it. Now._

"Nothing really. But, um," she searched for a diversion. "How about your girl? She…she seems…sweet."

"Louisa? Yeah, she's…sweet," Trunks answered in 'agreement', unsure of how else to describe her. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg for Ada's apology for what his 'girl' had said to her earlier. How, he asked the Powers That Be, could anyone possibly make any kind of comment at all about anything pertaining to Ada's looks? Trunks squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the embarrassment he was feeling for the sake of Louisa's impoliteness.

Silence alone filled the air for the remainder of the trip. Ada looked out the side window and kept to her own thoughts while Trunks had a few mental conversations with himself. Every once in a while his gaze would wander over to her, and he would take in her fair skin and dark eyes, her wavy ebony hair in its low-sitting knot, the very, very old t-shirt that hugged her curves, _Tenkaichi Budokai!!!_ emblazoned across her chest in faded yellow letters, her worn jeans and red sneakers.

Beautiful. Intensely interesting. Stubborn. Thoughtful. Warm. Compassionate. Intelligent. Traits like many other girls, yes, but somehow different. Somehow more intense, more practiced, more feeling, wiser. And strong. Mentally, emotionally, and physically. As strong as he, even, and about no other girl could he say that. It wasn't necessarily muscular strength, the kind that made a warrior's fist become a deadly weapon, but rather the way she could channel her energy. He had never seen a thing like it, and neither had Gohan, which was really saying something. Ada's ki had a fierce otherness to it, like something untamed, and yet it was terribly calm and centered. She had the ability to control her energy in a way that her brother claimed even Goku had not mastered.

"You know something?" Ada broke Trunks' chain of thought, pulling him back into the moment. He blinked and looked over at her in the passenger's seat. She was studying him with a half-smile on her face, contemplating something or other.

"What?" he managed to get out. What could she possibly be thinking? The way she was looking at him, she could be getting ready to say something…something substantial, something that would change their relationship forever-

"I think you should grow out your hair," Ada suggested confidently.

Or not. Trunks, who had been bracing himself for some kind of moment of truth, exhaled deeply.

"What?" he asked.

"You've had that same haircut for so long, Trunks," she said, delighting somewhat in the rarity that was saying his name. _Nonsense. A name is a name._ "I think you should grow it out. Maybe about to here?" she mused as she put a straight hand up to one of her shoulders.

"And…you think it would look okay?" he questioned skeptically. "Or would I look like a girl?"

She laughed a little. "Of course not. Plenty of guys wear their hair long. I mean, it's just a thought. If you ever decided you wanted a change or anything." Afraid she had been too forward, she added, "Not that you need it, or anything- it would look handsome either way." _Fantastic. Nice recovery. Was 'handsome' the only word you could think of?_

"Well, thank you," he said genuinely, blushing slightly from her last comment and thanking Kami that Ada wouldn't be able to see him do so in the dark.

Only moments later, the car landed right outside the door of the Son residence. Trunks pushed the button that opened the top of the car, and Ada turned to get out.

"Thank you for the ride," she said before heading toward the door of her home. Just before Trunks' finger hit the button to close the top again, she turned and smiled at him.

"Oh, and Trunks," she said cheerily. "Happy birthday."

**Postscript:** That's right, folks, I'm going to be totally cliché and do the ball thing next chapter. But don't you worry! There won't be any fluffy romantic dancing at _this_ gala, at least not for our heroes- you'll just have to tune in and see what happens. However, I do have a few different ideas about where to take the next couple chapters. So, my lovely reviewers, I would really appreciate your opinion: do you want some feel-good, get-together romance (no, I'm not talking about lemons) pretty soon or later on, and should I stick my planned vignettes about the past in during some of the next chapters or give it a rest?


	5. Where The Heart Longs To Be

**Disclaimer:** Ada is mine, but I don't own Dragon Ball Z! If I did, normal timeline Trunks wouldn't have turned into a pampered prince…snobby little shit… (Joking! But seriously, folks…)

CHAPTER FOUR

A very tired Trunks slunk down the steps of his home into the basement, tossing the keys to the aero-car on the kitchen counter as he walked by it.

"Is that you, Trunks?" he heard his mother's voice echo from somewhere down the hall.

"Yep," he called back, walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down in one of the chairs. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, wondering how long it would take for it to grow to his shoulders.

_She would know. She'd think I'd done it because of what she said_, he thought. He pushed away the little voice from the back of his mind that said, "And she'd be right!"

Moments later, Bulma walked into the kitchen, her wet blue hair thrown up into a bun atop her head. She pulled an orange out of the refrigerator and, sitting down opposite her son, commenced peeling it. A smile then crossed her face, a determined, almost vicious sort of grin, and she locked her eyes on her boy. It scared Trunks half to death. He was nineteen years old now, and he had that look burned into his mind. Bulma Brief had something she wanted to say, and she was going to do it whether it would be pleasant for him or not. She was readying her attack.

"Well, looks like _lover boy_ made it home intact," she observed, a playful bite in her voice.

"Come off it, Mom," Trunks replied, his cheeks reddening somewhat.

"No way, kid. I want some answers. You know you've been asking for it, but I haven't been able to say a thing all evening because your girlfriend was here!" Bulma exclaimed.

"Louisa isn't my girlfriend!" he shot back at her, really not wanting to answer whatever questions she had for him.

"That's completely beside the point. _I_ want to know when _you_ became so interested in _dating_!" She popped an orange slice into her mouth and continued. "When did the son of the venerable Prince Vegeta decide to sacrifice valuable training time to take a girl out to dinner?"

He winced slightly at the scathing sarcasm coating every single word of her speech. "I just…well…Louisa had always seemed a little…interested, I guess…she made a point of talking to me every time I stopped by her mom's bakery…I thought it would be nice to acknowledge that…" He looked down at his hands. What was the point of saying anything to the one woman in the world who could see right through him?

"So, just out of the blue, you decided to ask her out- even though you haven't been on a date before in your life? Just like that?" Bulma smirked "You can't think I'm that gullible, Trunks. I mean, really…"

"Look, just drop it, alright?" he asked, a tiny hint of desperation in his voice. "I mean, why does it matter? What about that old employee of yours, the one who comes by every once in a while to see if there are any good repair jobs out there? Well, his son's got a thing for Ada, and they were talking…you don't bother her about her personal life."

Bulma's eyes widened slowly, and her evil grin morphed into a look of realization before turning into a smile again. She slammed the orange peel in her right hand down on the table excitedly as though she'd just solved the world's toughest puzzle.

"So_ that's_ what this is about!" she exclaimed. Trunks looked at her, taken aback by the sudden outburst. "How did I not see it before? I can't tell you how many times Yamcha tried playing that game with me after he and I split…"

"What are you talking about?" Trunks inquired, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It was late. It had been a long night. He needed some sleep. And yet here was his mother, trying to pry into his love life…

"You just want to make Ada jealous because _you're_ jealous!" Bulma informed him knowingly. "It's one of the oldest tricks in the book. And it makes sense, I suppose. What else could you possibly see in that Louisa girl? I know that you're not one to judge solely on looks-"

Trunks, choosing to ignore his mother's embarrassing rambling, had risen from his chair. "Look, Mom, I'm really tired. I'm just going to go to bed. See you tomorrow."

"Huh? Oh, alright then. But don't think you can weasel out of admitting it! We both know I'm right," she said with a wink and a smile. "And happy birthday, kiddo."

And with that, the young warrior walked to his room, pulled off his clothes, and threw himself onto the bed. He spent the next hour doing his utmost to push his mother's barrage of questions (and answers) from his mind. He tried to concentrate on the next day; he would be getting back into his training regiment and needed to focus, to clear his mind.

_Louisa's a nice enough girl. I like her. I asked her out _because_ I like her…_

He drifted off to sleep, less convinced of his motives than he had been of anything in his life.

**xxx**

The ball the next month was as grand as any event in an unkempt, hotel basement conference room could possibly be. The space was small, but with only about 130 people altogether in attendance, it seemed more cozy than anything. Midnight blue tablecloths and decorations accompanied by crystal vases full of white roses gave the gala the touch of elegance needed to send everyone there into a state of peaceful forgetfulness of circumstance and reality.

To Bulma's surprise, the class and loveliness of the guests actually complemented the beauty of the ballroom. With most stores having been closed for years, people had gotten creative with their wardrobe. Women wore gowns pulled from boxes stuffed away in sheds and accessorized with old costume jewelry. Truly, the joy in the room was like a spoonful of sugar to the medicine that all of them had to swallow each day, over and over.

Showing off her favorite red evening gown, the lovely Ms. Brief had little time to take a breath between speaking with old employees and seeing that food and drinks were in order. She had not been so positively radiant in years, and the glow about her face seemed to wipe a decade away from her features.

Trunks, meanwhile, had stepped into the room with a very giddy Louisa on his arm. Looking smart and terribly handsome in a tuxedo complete with black bowtie, he scanned the room for his mother. She appeared to be having a wonderful time catching up with some old friends, so he looked over at his date. The bright-eyed girl had nearly squealed with delight when they arrived at the gala, and she now tugged on Trunks' arm excitedly.

"Ohhhh, let's dance, Trunks! Come on!" she peeped, pulling him toward the dance floor and simultaneously trying not to trip over her large royal blue ball gown. He looked at her rather sheepishly before giving in and then, after she had turned and begun walking towards the waltzing couples, surveyed the room as though expecting something. With an almost undetectable sigh and frustrated frown, Trunks gave up and followed Louisa.

**xxx**

After an afternoon of Bulma tugging, brushing, curling, pinning, and hair spraying her black locks, Ada felt exhausted. Bulma had finally finished the girl's hair, deciding on an elegant but somewhat informal up-do. Ada spent the proceeding hour trying to get her makeup just right but, even after all of the agonizing, simply settled on her usual light and airy look. The finishing touch was her dress, one of Bulma's mother's old ball gowns. With the glow of youth and bloom of Ada's loveliness, Bulma likened the young woman to a glamorous cinema star of the Golden Age (which Ada thought was taking it a bit too far: "It's really very pretty, but it's just a dress…"). The dress was a white, strapless piece, its movie-palace fabric rows adorned here and there with diamond-like crystals. Bulma had no doubt that Ada, with her fair skin and dark features, would be turning heads at the ball.

And yet the girl had not even entered the room. She was instead sitting up against a wall in a corridor around the corner from the entrance, fingering the hem of her gown.

She had been so excited about the evening, so thrilled at the idea of going to a special event like, she assumed, people used to do before the androids arrived. Now, she could not help but consider it terribly absurd. They were living in a world of makeshift homes built in underground shelters, of food shortages, of injury and death. Her mother's greatest dream for her older brother had been that he get into a renowned university and eventually earn a doctorate. In the world Ada inhabited, she had not even been to a real school since she was ten. Sure, she was an extremely bright girl who, Bulma often correctly observed, could have done whatever she wanted with her life if circumstances had not been what they were.

But that was just it. If. It was always 'if'. The more Ada contemplated this ridiculous ball, the more it became another 'if'. We could have a Capsule Corporation employee ball _if_ Capsule Corporation even existed anymore…_if_ people had the money to buy food, let alone dozens of roses to decorate tables…_if_ more children were not being orphaned every day…Ada began to laugh bitterly. They were having an extravagant dance while many people were, at that very moment, praying that their injured family members might survive or that there would be a roof over their heads the next day.

Her laughter ceased as she considered that the people at the ball were compassionate people. Their plights were the same as everyone else's. There was no rich or poor any longer. They were all suffering in the same way. So why was it that all of the employees and their spouses were eating, drinking, talking, and dancing? Why were they able to enjoy themselves while Ada felt nothing but bitterness and dejection? Was there something else nagging at her? She searched her thoughts briefly before squeezing her eyes shut. No. She was just in a strange mood. That was certainly all.

Ada sighed. She knew that Bulma would be looking for her sooner or later; she was going to have to go in. Standing up and straightening her dress, she felt a pang of regret coupled with embarrassment at walking into the ballroom alone.

**xxx**

Absolutely shocked by how well the hotel staff had done with the ballroom, Ada could not help but smile. It was all so lovely. She immediately spotted Bulma, who proceeded to introduce Ada to several old employees and their spouses. That, in fact, was how Miss Son spent the next hour, stealing searching glances at the dance floor from time to time but otherwise pasting on a courteous smile and conversing with those who were not the dancing type.

Trunks, who had finally convinced Louisa to take a break from twirling and fox-trotting around the dance floor, was chatting with his mother as she pointed out people who he recognized from his childhood when they had worked in the Capsule Corporation complex.

"Trunks, sweetie," Louisa said, her voice filled to the brim with sugar, "I'm going to go get us some drinks! Back in a minute!"

He reddened as she pecked him on the cheek. _Sweetie?_ he mused. _I've only gone out with her a few times…_

"Doesn't it look fantastic in here?" Bulma asked as she looked around, her hands on her hips.

"It really does, Mom. I never would have put someone up to the task of turning this place around, but I've got to admit that it really came together," he responded, looking over her shoulder. Bulma followed his gaze and turned around to see Ada talking with several of the guests. She frowned.

"I really wish she would dance with someone. We went through all of that trouble to get her ready for tonight, and she's done nothing but talk," Bulma sighed. "At least she looks like a million bucks, anyway."

"Maybe her date doesn't like to dance," he guessed.

Bulma looked at her son in confusion. "What are you talking about, Trunks?"

"Her date. The Masao kid. Maybe he's not much for dancing," he explained.

"You mean Niku's son?"

"Yeah, the one who asked her to be his date tonight," Trunks affirmed.

"Well," Bulma explained, still a bit confused about her son's having misunderstood the situation, "she turned him down, Trunks."

"What?" he asked, unwelcome surprise etching itself all over his face.

"She told him that she couldn't go with him," she said matter-of-factly. "Why on earth not, I still don't really understand. Sure, the kid's a tad egotistical, but he seems nice enough, and he's handsome and seems to really like Ada." Bulma shrugged her shoulders and then turned to walk toward one of the waiters who was awaiting her instructions about how many hors d'oeuvre trays to send around the room.

"Maybe," Bulma said nonchalantly, the grin she wore as she faced the opposite way invisible to her son, "she had someone else on her mind."

Trunks stood there dumbstruck as his date returned and promptly clung to his arm, sipping punch and begging him to dance again.

**xxx**

"_Chi Chi! Hello honey! It's me!" shouted the familiar husky voice of the Ox King as he walked into the door of the Son residence, arms full of bulging grocery bags. His daughter looked up from her knitting with a smile. Her father had been staying with them for the last couple of weeks, an annual tradition of his since Gohan was a boy._

"_Ah, a wise man bearing groceries. Come in," she replied kindly._

"_I don't know about wise, but I did remember the honeydew melon, and ketchup, and the potatoes for my french fries," Ada heard her grandfather reply. The thirteen-year old had been sitting patiently in the hallway, trying to lure a particularly intelligent spider down to her level from the ceiling. She was on a mission to get rid of the thing once and for all, swearing that if she had to listen to her mother scream and run through the house one more time, she was going to jump off a cliff._

"_Oh," Ox added, "and I heard a rumor about Gohan."_

"_Gohan?" Chi Chi asked with worry, setting her knitting needles on the table. "Please, tell me he's alright, Dad!"_

"_Oh, he's just fine, dear, but it seems he's been taking it upon himself to challenge the androids lately from what I hear."_

"_What am I going to do with that boy?" Chi Chi asked herself, walking over to a shelf upon which sat a picture frame. "There's no talking him out of it."_

"_Try not to worry about it, hun. I know it's hard," he said reassuringly as his daughter picked up the photograph, an old one taken of the Son family when Gohan was no more than four years old. Ada, no stranger to the art of eavesdropping, had abandoned her arachnid pursuit and peered around the corner into the living room._

"_I don't know what I'd do if I lost him, Dad. He's all I have left."_

_Ada frowned, choking back what promised to be a rush of tears. That was how her mother talked sometimes when she thought the girl wasn't around. She spoke as though the younger of her children didn't even exist, and it broke Ada's heart. The child knew her mother didn't mean it in a hurtful way, of course, and understood instead that the woman who had been Chi Chi was gone, that that life was over. Whoever her mother was now and whatever made her get up every morning, Ada knew, was only a shadow, a façade. Ada cringed at the knowledge that she was a product of that 'second' life, of the shell that her family had become after her father's death. That she had never gotten the chance to experience anything else made Ada feel as though she had been shorted. Fate had cheapened her existence by no choice of her own. _

**xxx**

_**Postscript:**_Phew! These chapters just keep getting longer and longer! I didn't want to break this one into parts, though. The way I'm churning this story out probably makes you think that I have no life, which is only half true. Normally, I do indeed have one, but it's summer, and college was tough this past year. Thus, I'm spending my nights typing away! Thank you for the continued reviewing, **CRdragonPyro**! I'm glad to hear that you like where I'm taking it. I worry sometimes that the bits about Ada's and Trunks' relationship are too forward and cheesy, but, hell, I don't want to see them be lonely for too terribly long. Besides, there are so many things ahead of them… Anyway, as always, please review! Ask questions, critique me, all that- I would love to hear from you! Ah yes, and the dialogue in the flashback isn't mine. It comes from _The History of Trunks_ English dub. Thank you, Funimation!


	6. Talks and Tempers

CHAPTER 5

_Gohan sat down tiredly on his bed and began gingerly removing the weighted boots from his aching feet. He had forgotten what it felt like to be exhausted. After all, it had been almost twelve years since he'd had a sparring partner, excepting, of course, the androids, whom he did not count because he almost always ended up lying in the dirt unconscious when he encountered them. Trunks, he noted as he removed his second boot, was remarkably strong for his age. Not as powerful as Gohan yet, but certainly getting there. The progress the boy had made in just two weeks of training was astounding. He stretched out his feet and then turned upon hearing a noise from the doorway of his bedroom._

"_Hey Ade-o," he said with a smile at his sister. The twelve-year old was leaning against his doorframe, arms folded, with braided black pigtails hanging around her shoulders. He assumed she was on her way to bed, considering the late hour and oversized Capsule Corp. tee shirt and flannel pajama pants she was sporting. Ada had a habit of finding her brother and hugging him goodnight each evening, a gesture he returned with a light kiss on the forehead. That had been their nighttime ritual as long as Gohan could remember._

_Yet, tonight she was not moving from her spot in the doorway. In fact, she wasn't even returning the smile._

"_You're home late. Long day?" Ada asked as if she already knew the answer. Gohan's face fell somewhat as he tried to guess at what she could be playing at._

"_Yep. You okay, baby sister?" he inquired, attempting to cut to the chase as quickly as possible. She looked as though she was searching for words. After several moments of silence, she took a few steps into her brother's room and closed the door behind her so as not to draw her mother's attention to their conversation. Then, Ada crossed her arms and stood square in front of her brother, who was now standing up to face her in much the same position._

"_You're training Trunks, aren't you?" she accused suddenly, looking up at Gohan with fire in her eyes._

"_What on earth would give you that idea?" he replied quickly and, Ada thought, rather sheepishly. Gohan, of course, knew that she had him figured out but still always automatically kicked up an excuse when questioned about anything secretive. He assumed it was something he had acquired from dealing with his mother for so many years._

"_Don't lie," she stated flatly, her cheeks reddening._

"_Ada, listen-" Gohan began before being cut off by the fuming young girl in front of him._

"_Why would you train him instead of me, even after I've begged you for so long?" she exploded. "Is it because I'm a girl? Or d'you just thing he's stronger than me?"_

_Gohan passed a hand over his eyes and sighed. Whatever he said to her would be meaningless. She was young, she was angry, and she was, in some ways, her mother's daughter. Perhaps more frustrating than that, he realized that Ada simply would not understand if he tried to tell her the truth. _

"_Because he's not!" her tirade continued, rivers of tears ready to spill out of her eyes at any second. "I can do it, too! I've _practiced_!" She had run out of breath, the last word coming out with specific emphasis and complete desperation. Ada looked down at the floor, teardrops falling onto the carpet of her brother's room._

"_C'mon," Gohan said softly, placing a hand on her right shoulder. She shrugged it off angrily, looking up at him again._

"_I want to fight!" she practically yelled as the knuckles of her balled-up fists began to whiten. "Dad trained you, so what about me, huh?"_

_Gohan, knowing any other attempt at reasoning with her on the subject was futile, hardened his eyes and frowned._

"_No," he said firmly, the one word carrying more gravity than all of his sister's pleas._

"_That's not FAIR!" she shot back, this time putting both palms, splayed out, against his chest and shoving him. Sure, she'd started a fight or two at school when she was younger after being made fun of, but Gohan knew that these days she would never do something so immature around anyone but him. He was Ada's release, the one she came to when she needed to channel some anger or have a good cry. Gohan understood her, and for that reason alone was she comfortable enough to operate almost purely on emotion when she was around him._

"_You're just acting childish!" he countered gruffly. "Go to bed, Ada. This conversation is over."_

_She looked at him for a moment, now hurt beyond words, as tears streamed down her cheeks. Then, she turned on her heel, threw open the door, and walked briskly to her own room. Gohan heard her door slam as he flipped the light switch and then made his way to the bathroom. He needed a shower. More than that, he needed his father to materialize and tell him how in the hell he was supposed to raise a teenager._

_After stepping into the shower, Gohan looked upwards at nothing in particular._

"_She's your daughter," he said angrily before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He had wanted to ask the ceiling, 'So where are you?' but knew it was pointless. Angry at himself for getting into the mess in the first place, Gohan began to have second thoughts about having taken Trunks as his pupil. He wondered whether teaching the boy how to fight was not the same as pushing him off a cliff. Bulma, naturally, was going to be furious if she found out._

_And then there was Ada. Gohan was completely void of ideas about how to explain the decision to her. Assuming his sister would probably spend the rest of both their lives not speaking to him, he began to wonder what possible excuse he could give her. She would scoff at the truth. Nonetheless, he thought he would at least see how it sounded. Looking again at nothing but the shower wall, Gohan dropped his voice to a whisper._

"_If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself. Not in this life or the next."_

**xxx**

It took less than an hour for Trunks to realize how badly he needed a break. He was sweaty, exhausted, and terribly on edge. One more slow dance with Louisa pushing herself up against him, he figured, and he would end up saying or doing something that would hurt her feelings and cause an unnecessary scene. It was simply too much too fast.

Throwing open the door from the stairwell, he stepped outside and took in as much air as he possibly could.

"Come out here for a breather?" an unfamiliar voice inquired, making him jump a little. Trunks looked to his left to see the source of the question- a couple of the guests taking a smoke break. He nodded at them, and they turned around and continued their conversation. The young man turned the other direction in search of a place to sit on the ground that was at least marginally clean. A few buildings just south of that area had been attacked several days before, and the dust from their destruction had settled in thick sheets around the area. This particular sidewalk, Trunks noted happily, was somewhat less filthy than he expected.

"Hey there."

He looked down the pavement a ways to see, of all people, Ada, who had apparently gotten the same idea.

"Hey," Trunks replied, taking a seat about a foot from her, careful not to sit on her dress.

"Having a good time?" she asked, fingering the diamond necklace that Bulma had lent her.

"Uh, yeah, definitely," he answered, nodding his head. "And you?"

"Mm-hm," she affirmed with a nod of her own. Silence.

They both turned their heads upwards to the stars.

"My mom told me," Ada observed after a while, "that in the old days, you couldn't see the stars from the city. She said that there were too many lights."

"I've heard the same thing," he said. "It seems strange, you know? The idea of something manmade being able to penetrate that kind of darkness, I mean."

"Yeah," she agreed. "When you go back, you'll get to see it, West City all lit up. You'll have to tell me what it's like." Trunks did not need to ask what 'back' meant. His excursions through the space-time continuum were spoken of as a matter of course.

"You will, too," he assured her. "After all this is over. When things get back to normal."

To his surprise, she laughed. "And what is 'normal'?"

"Well…" he was at a loss for words. "I guess it's whatever we want it to be. We're going to get the chance to start over, almost from scratch." He scratched his head a little, a frown on his face.

"I shouldn't be so confident," Trunks said gravely.

"Why would you say that?" Ada looked at him with scorn, a reaction that took him by surprise.

"It's just that, I mean, I've been training all of my life. And so have you. What's come of it?" he asked somewhat forlornly, squinting his eyes slightly as though searching for the light at the end of some invisible tunnel.

Ada huffed, a flame dancing in her eyes. "I can't believe that you'd say such a thing. _You_ are supposed to be the cool, confident one. It's _my_ job to fret over that sort of thing," she informed him matter-of-factly, anger evident in her voice. "And besides, if Goku really is what Bulma and my mom…and you, even…say that he is, he'll know what needs to be done. In their time and ours."

Trunks reflected on this for a moment. When she referred to her father, a rarity, she almost never called him by his proper name. That only happened, he knew, when she was angry. He breathed a sigh, his voice returning to normal.

"He really is something. I mean, I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but I could tell," he stated simply. Then, with a smile, he added, "His confidence made me want to stay in the past to train with all of them. I really considered it for a minute there."

Ada looked at him incredulously. "You're telling me that you thought about ditching your mom's plan altogether and staying in a different time?"

Trunks looked at her sheepishly. Something about the way she shot his words back at him made the whole thing sound idiotic. "Well, if you had been there, had seen how happy they all were after Goku came back, how _ready_ he was to take on the androids…"

"I wouldn't have even considered abandoning the people that need me at home," she snapped, finishing his sentence for him. "What about your mother, hm? And all of the people in _your_ time?" _And me?_ she wanted to add but thought better of it.

"Well it's not like I actually did it, alright?" he said defensively, his pride taking over. "And how can you know that you wouldn't have considered the same thing? At least I was willing to go," he finished angrily, knowing immediately that he'd crossed the line. She only stared at him, her lips pursed.

"I'm sorry," she said tersely after several moments. "I forgot how very _noble_ you are."

And with that, Son Ada stood, brushed off her dress, took a deep breath, and reentered the hotel.

**xxx**

Trunks heard nothing out of Ada for the next two weeks. Granted, he was spending most of his time in the basement of Building 2 of the Capsule Corporation complex, a very large, very open old warehouse that had been abandoned with most of the rest of the company when Bulma had been forced to shut down years before. Nothing about it was especially conducive to the intense training that he was doing, but it was the only place in or around the city that would work. It took only thirteen days for Trunks to become terribly frustrated with his utter lack of progress. Nothing to practice on, no extra gravitational pull, no sparring partner.

The latter, he reasoned, was the only one that he could possibly fix, and he grudgingly decided that he had no other choice.

One shower, a change of clothes, and an hour and a half later, he found himself standing on the doorstep of the Son house and knocking on the door.

"Why, isn't this a surprise?" Chi Chi, who answered the door, smiled broadly at the boy, dishtowel in hand. "Come in, Trunks!"

"Thanks, Chi Chi," he replied shyly, stepping across the threshold. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know. About the same," she informed him with a small sigh. "But how about you, dear? Ada hasn't mentioned you in ages. I feel so uninformed!" After motioning for Trunks to have a seat at the kitchen table, Chi Chi made her way back to the sink to finish drying the dishes.

"I guess we've just been too busy to see much of each other," he responded, reddening a little at the fib.

"Understandable. Life gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it? And I assume you've been hard at work with your training," Chi Chi stated. She admittedly understood very little about the time machine business and didn't care to know more, but she gathered from Ada that Trunks had stepped up his training intensity in preparation for returning to the past.

"Yes," he said in a characteristically modest tone. "That's actually why I'm here. I'm sort of in need of a sparring partner, and I was hoping to-"

"Yes, yes, I was thinking as much. She's about half a mile to the west; she said she was going past the pond with the willow and to that nice, shady spot where the two streams meet," Chi Chi responded plainly. Trunks was still astounded by how well Ada's mother could read people, especially when they were hungry for a good fight. He assumed it was force of habit. Ada was, after all, the third warrior to grace the Son residence (not counting Chi Chi herself).

"Right," he said as he stood and smiled. "It's been a while since I've been out here – hopefully I won't get lost. Thank you!"

And as quickly as he had come, he was gone, his blood pumping furiously at the thought of a real challenge.


	7. Fight and Flight

CHAPTER 6

"_But…" the desperate woman stammered, her tissue-filled hands shaking uncontrollably, "You don't understand…" Tears began spilling out of her dark eyes, already swollen from the insomnia of the past month. _

"_Mrs. Son," the doctor said gingerly as he took a seat beside her, "Considering everything that you've gone through as of late, it's perfectly natural to be a bit upset about this pregnancy." He gently laid a hand on her shoulder._

"_No…it can't…" Chi Chi buried her face in her hands, sobs erupting from her. The doctor frowned and looked at the blue-haired woman sitting in the chair across the examination room. The latter nodded at the doctor, who understood that nothing more was to be done. He simply needed to leave. With a concerned last glance at the inconsolable Son widow, he left the room, closing the door behind him._

_Bulma sat down in the doctor's now-vacant chair and put an arm around Chi Chi, holding her tightly._

"_Chi Chi," she said, beginning to tear up as well, "I know this must be killing you. But after you have a good cry, you're going to look at the news as good- I just know it!" Bulma attempted an encouraging smile and continued._

"_It's not like you're alone, sweetie. You've got Gohan, and your dad, and me, and Krillin, and, well, everyone! And they'll all be so excited when you tell them!"_

_Chi Chi, clearly not buying any of it, looked up miserably at Bulma. The poor woman had completely deteriorated since her husband's untimely death, only really holding it together when her son was around._

"_I-I can't do this alone," Chi Chi stammered softly, looking hopelessly ahead of her._

"_It's really not as hard as it sounds- I promise!" Bulma replied. "I didn't think I could raise a kid by myself, either, and look at me now! Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. I mean, Vegeta's around and everything…but for as much help as he is, I can consider myself a single parent…" Her smile slowly deteriorated into a frown. Apparently Chi Chi wasn't going to be cheered up in any way. Bulma searched for the right words. She found nothing._

"_It wasn't supposed to be like this," Chi Chi whispered._

**xxx**

After a few minutes of darting through the forest and across several fields, Trunks spotted her. Or rather, he saw what he presumed to be her. From a distance, it appeared to be a very bright, very calm flame. It glowed gold, its tongues licking at the air every few moments. Within was Ada, sitting completely still with her legs crossed and one hand resting atop each knee. Trunks approached her from behind, stopping several feet away. He envied her seemingly absolute control. She had always been that way, able to keep all of her energy pulled inward, ready to explode at a moment's notice. Nothing wasted. To Gohan's chagrin, he had never been able to put his finger on what gave her the gift, only venturing to guess that it had something to do with her being female. As he considered his last conversation with Ada, Trunks wondered how Kami could grant someone with such a fiery temper the ability to be so collected when necessary.

"It's rude to sneak up on people."

Quickly jarred from his own thoughts, Trunks blinked rapidly and realized she had probably known he was coming from the moment he left West City. If Ada could feel his _ki_ as delicately as he could feel hers, not a single flare of anxiety or raising of defenses would go unnoticed.

The energy around her died down, and she slowly stood to look at him. Ada folded her arms, an unreadable expression gracing her features.

"Sorry about that," Trunks said, scratching the back of his head.

"About what?" she inquired hopefully, one eyebrow raised.

"About sneaking up."

"Oh," Ada said flatly with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. "It's fine." Silence. Trunks just looked at her, unsure of what he should say. Or rather, what he should say _first_. A few feet in front of him, Ada stood very still other than several flyaway strands of hair that the wind was blowing about her face. She wore an exceedingly tattered pair of faded orange pants- Gohan's, he knew- a patch or two sewn on here and there, as well as a white spandex tank top.

Trunks pulled off his jacket, followed by his boots, at which point Ada tilted her head sideways. "Is there something about me that makes you want to take off your clothes?" she asked with a devilish smirk. Trunks, coughing involuntarily, was sure he turned ten different shades of red at that moment.

_Think of something witty!_

"Well, uh," he began, "I was- I thought maybe you'd-you would…How about a fight?" He exhaled strongly after the battle to force something coherent from his mouth. _Really clever_, he thought sarcastically, mentally covering his face with his hands and darting off in the other direction.

"Oh?" she asked, and he realized happily that she was intrigued. "Why?"

"I suppose," Trunks began, taking a deep breath, "I'm aching for a challenge. I haven't fought anyone since Freeza, and he was cake." _Nice recovery_. After having collected himself and saved face (as best as he thought possible in the situation), the young man unclasped the strap connected to the sheath of his sword and set the weapon on the ground. Ada sat back down, fingering a blade of grass.

"Well I guess I can oblige," she responded. In spite of having convinced herself that he didn't deserve the favor, she couldn't really resist the opportunity to release some of the tension she was feeling. And maybe she would get the chance to serve him a slice of humble pie while she was at it.

_Oh yeah_, she thought as she brushed the hair from her eyes, _I'm totally kicking his ass_.

**xxx**

It took only two rounds of furious blows and blocks before Ada found a flaw in the rhythm of her opponent's fighting. She took advantage of it, latching one hand on each of Trunks' shoulders and pushing him roughly onto the ground from some ten feet in the air. The young man found himself suddenly pinned to the ground, Ada straddling his midsection and pushing his upper body down with her palms. Somewhat shocked and yet absolutely furious that he had been thus disabled so quickly, Trunks attempted to throw her off. Ada did not budge.

Amused by Trunks' visible anger and frustration at the rather emasculating position in which he found himself, Ada smirked down at him, her face about ten inches above his own. "You're trying not to hurt me, and it's making your technique sloppy," she informed him matter-of-factly. "If you won't be serious about this, we can stop now. I'll take it as forfeiture."

Trunks mustered all of his energy, at the same time accidentally letting a growl escape his throat. As she was forced off him and several feet backwards, Ada mentally congratulated herself. This was what she wanted out of him; he would never improve if he was trying harder not to harm his opponent than to obliterate her.

A half hour later, the two warriors, chests heaving rapidly, lay panting on the ground several feet from one another. Trunks absolutely could not believe it. Sure, he had held back. He winced at the realization that he would never really be able to hit a girl (not counting the monstrous Android Eighteen, of course), no matter how strong. Yet the fact remained that, even if he would have fought at full strength, he may not have been able to take her down despite her not having truly trained in months and his having worked at it almost every day. And what if she had been holding back, too? Such a stunt was not characteristic of Ada, who almost certainly understood how seriously Trunks took testing his strength and, he imagined, would have had no reason to lead him on. Especially while she was angry at him, Ada would have given no less than her best. So why, Kami, _why_ had he been unable to beat her with ease? He wanted to shout so loudly that the Grand Kai himself would hear, to throw his fists into the ground and grind his teeth.

_But…I can't let her know. Even if she won't admit it, she's got to be counting on me making something of this trip to the past…and if she figures out that I'm spent? That I've hit a plateau? That I'm nowhere near strong enough to take on the androids, in our time or theirs?_ Trunks turned his head sideways and looked at Ada, whose hair was plastered to her sweat-drenched face. _No. If I'm going down, I'm going down with a fight- even one I can't hope to win. And she'll never have to know how…weak…I was. No one will._

Trunks had closed his eyes and was attempting to catch his breath when Ada spoke, still panting herself in between phrases. "You didn't…have to hold back…I can hold…my own…against you…" So she knew that even after he had begun trying to really fight her, he was still holding back power.

"I just…don't think…I could hit…a girl," he replied, at which point Ada smirked. Her smile, however, slowly fell into a frown.

"But you can't…have trained…very hard…or long…" she added.

"What…d'you mean?" Trunks asked.

"It's been…what…six months…since we sparred?" Ada thought out loud, "And you haven't…really improved…much at all."

Trunks mustered all of his willpower to hold his tongue. He wanted to shout that he already knew that, that it was hopeless, that he was going nowhere fast without much chance of improvement in the short timeframe left before he would have to leave again. _How can I possibly turn myself around in eighteen months?_

"Well," he replied sagely, finally catching his breath. "I haven't been training very intensely. I'm working more on the mental aspect of things."

Ada sat up, propping herself up on her hands, which were splayed out on the ground behind her. She looked at him knowingly, a sad, wry sort of smile on her face. "Your lying to me would really piss me off if you were any good at it." He had nothing to say to her, only her gaze to return. The girl knew everything. The soul-crushing feeling that he expected to arrive any moment, however, did not come. Rather, he felt like a massive boulder had been removed from his chest. He could breathe.

They surveyed one another in silence for several moments, their eye contact steady and unblinking. Trunks had expected her to show her disappointment in him, to share in his grief; if nothing else, he thought that Ada would lash out at him for laziness or lack of work ethic- he was certainly doing it to himself (_Going on dates? What were you thinking? What would your _father_ say?_). And yet she only gave him a small, encouraging smile as she got to her feet.

"Thanks for the fight, Trunks," she said somewhat quietly, her voice carrying a genuine sweetness that lifted him tremendously. "It's getting late. Would you like to stay for dinner?"

He stood, returning the smile albeit unsure. "Dinner sounds great," he replied with a nod. Ada turned, readying herself to dart off through the forest, when Trunks took hold of her wrist. She looked at him as though puzzled. He took his hand away and looked down at his feet. "Ada…"

"Yeah?" she asked, taking a step toward him.

"About what happened…at the ball…" He struggled a little with the words. "I shouldn't have said…well…I'm sorry. And it was wrong not to have apologized sooner." He was somewhat ashamed of the next thing he said: "I thought you would be more fun to fight, you know…if you were still angry at me…" Trunks blushed with shame at such a cheap, manipulative tactic, looked up at her, and, to his surprise, found her smiling at him yet again.

"Thank you," she said slowly. "But it really wasn't necessary, the apology. I kind of…I was a little on edge, I guess, and I...not that that's an excuse, but…I jumped down your throat, and that was childish. So, I mean…I'm sorry, too." Trunks noticed that she was blushing a bit.

"It's alright," he said. "Maybe we were both in bad moods, huh?"

"I guess so," she affirmed with a nod, her cheeks still pink.

"Are…you okay?" Trunks inquired, touching her arm lightly. She jumped and laughed nervously.

"Oh- yeah, just…a little wound up, I guess. So…how about that dinner?"

**xxx**

The next several days passed in much the same fashion, with Trunks heading over to spar with Ada in the afternoon after doing his own workouts in the morning. Beyond that, the two had actually begun working on training exercises, something that surprised Trunks as he thought that Gohan purposely had never taught so many formal exercises to his sister. He found out that he thought correctly but that kid Ada had made a habit of tracking her brother and his pupil down and spying on them from a safe distance. Learning this did not surprise Trunks in the least, of course. It was Ada. Would he have expected anything less?

After a particularly difficult fight one afternoon, Trunks headed home for a shower and a nap only to wake up shortly after sunset to the crackling din of the radio emergency alert system.

" – seen a thing like this, not since the massacre in Pepper City some years ago now! The entire Grove Street District has been completely leveled, with no word on a single survivor as of yet, and the monsters have moved into downtown. There's no end in sight to this rampage, folks, none at all. We _urge_ you, please, to take cover immediately if you live in Pepper or West City, the surrounding villages, or in the 426 to 440 Mountain Areas, the latter having been the beginning of the several hundred kilometer chain of absolute decimation begun this afternoon. Again, please move to a protected, underground area, locking all doors and windows behind you. I repeat, this is an emergency alert for those inhabiting Pepper City and its environs, West City and its environs, or the 426 through 440 Mountain Areas."

Trunks' throat ran dry. The Son household was in Area 439. For several moments, he was absolutely frozen with dread.

"EARTH TO TRUNKS!" screamed a voice in his ear. The young man's eyes snapped suddenly to his mother, who was now standing over him with a flashlight and the wireless radio from the kitchen.

"S-sorry, Mom," he blurted out, standing and facing her.

"C'mon, we're going to the kitchen. I need to try to get Chi Chi on the phone," Bulma said in an intense, business-like fashion. Crises seemed to bring out the most maturity in his mother, Trunks thought, which still wasn't saying a lot. Nonetheless, she always handled herself deftly when the situation called for it.

"Right. I'll grab some blankets." Trunks went to his closet and began pulling old quilts and pillows down, his hands shaking nervously. Depending on the severity of the attack, he sometimes waited the night out on the floor of the kitchen. The androids knew where the Brief family lived, and there was always the lingering possibility of getting a house visit if the monsters were in a particularly destructive mood. Attacks happened so often that Trunks usually handled it well, but tonight he simply could not pull his mind from Ada.

_I'm sure they got out in time. Ada's probably headed this way right now, perfectly fine…she can take care of herself. But I don't get it…those monsters hardly ever attack the countryside. Did they just wake up and decide that this would be the day to begin finishing off everyone on the planet?_ he wondered bitterly as he headed into the kitchen. Bulma was already sitting at the table, furiously dialing the number of the Son residence for the fifth time in a row. Trunks set down the bedclothes and leaned against the countertop, telling himself over and over that everything would be fine. Ada knew the drill. She'd spent her whole life hiding and come out without a scratch.

Bulma slammed the receiver down. "Son of a bitch," she spat out, trying to take deep breaths. "The phones must be down out there. I'm getting a dial tone, but the calls keep disconnecting." Trunks frowned and picked the phone up himself, punching in the number as his mother massaged her temples. The sound of a massive blast echoed through their ears from several kilometers away.

"Work…please work," Trunks muttered into the telephone, gulping. After several rings, the line went dead. He set it down and took a seat across from his mother. "No luck." Two more explosions, closer than the last.

"We apologize for the drop in radio transmission," a voice announced from the small metal box on the table. "We're back with live coverage of the attack on Pepper City. The androids have moved out of downtown and into the outskirts of the city. No apparent destination or purpose is discernible at this point. Several rescue crews were dispatched about five minutes ago, but we're getting reports that one of them has lost communication with law enforcement headquarters. The reason why can only be guessed at."

Trunks and his mother looked at the radio, hanging on every bit of news in a kind of trance. They both nearly fell backwards at the sound of the door into the basement being slammed shut. Seconds later, Ada and Chi Chi emerged from the stairwell, the former looking panic-stricken and the latter, completely dazed. Both were clad in pajamas. Catching her breath, Ada looked at the two Briefs, a hint of desperation in her eyes.

"Didn't you hear us knock? I was pounding on the door," she said. Bulma ran over immediately and caught her and then her mother in two astoundingly strong hugs.

"I'm so, so sorry," Bulma said, relief evident in her face and voice. "We were listening to the radio – we must not have heard; we kept trying to call-"

"It's alright," Ada replied, smiling the slightest bit. "I broke the lock, I think…sorry about that…"

"Don't apologize!" Bulma said, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of it. "As if a lock would do us any good. Honestly. But anyway…no sense in standing around here getting flustered. We may as well have some tea and take a seat; all we can do is wait."

**xxx**

**Postscript:** Thank you, thank you, thank you (seriously though, I can't say it enough) to my loyal reviewers. I appreciate it so much! Speaking of which, you should certainly go have a look at some of **Draquia**'s work. I'm reading "Lovefools Part 1", a K/18 fic, at the moment, and it's awesome. I know that the android attack seems like déjà vu at this point, but I'm going somewhere with it, I promise. We're on the uphill climb to a turning point in the story, and I can't wait to write everything that I've got in mind! As always, questions, comments, concerns, criticism – I love reading it all, so send it my way!


	8. The Case for the Love Story

CHAPTER 7

"_Mom!" called the fourteen-year old boy from the front door. "I have to go! I can't be late again!"_

"_Hold your horses, Gohan!" growled his mother from the hallway. The boy recoiled with a frown and a heavy sigh, running one hand through his short, wild black hair. A battle of epic proportions was being fought just outside of the kitchen, and if the whines and high-pitched screams were any indication of its intensity, young Gohan wanted no part in it._

"_You're going to make your brother late AGAIN!"_

"_No, YOU are!" Gohan shook his head, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Five years old and already feeling no qualms about having a shouting match with the most frightening woman in the world, Son Ada found herself being dragged by the arm into the kitchen. Chi Chi, her mother, had a tourniquet-tight grip on the girl's wrist and was resorting to force after thirty minutes of arguing with the incorrigible child. Ada was trying to use her feet, clad in tiny white patent-leather shoes, as leverage against her mother's uncommon strength._

"_Come…on!" Chi Chi huffed, teeth bared. "You…are…going…to…SCHOOL!"_

_At that point, Gohan tapped into the source of the argument. His sister was sporting a pink and yellow floral sundress with a matching bow atop her black ponytail. He had to wonder why his mother would even try such a thing._

"_ALL GIRLS WEAR DRESSES!" his mother roared, slowly closing the three-foot gap between Ada and the front door._

"_But _Mommy_…what if somebody sees my _panties_…?!" the girl whined desperately, now using her free hand to latch onto the kitchen table._

"_NO ONE WILL SEE YOUR PANTIES! Just don't lift up your dress. It's just THAT EASY, ADA!"_

"_Mom, we're going to be la-" Gohan jutted in nervously, glancing up at the clock. He stopped short when his mother shot him a glare heavier with the force of a thousand Kamehameha Waves._

_Son Ada, stubborn to the end, purposely fell down, planting her face in the floor. Chi Chi glared incredulously at the flowery lump lying before her._

"_Get up right now, Ada- RIGHT NOW!"_

"_Nnnhhhh…" came a low whine from the mass of ebony waves splayed across the wood floor. _

_Chi Chi, suddenly drained of her will to fight, let go of Ada's arm and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs. She began massaging her temples. "Just…go to school, Gohan."_

_Gohan bit his lip, his eyes flitting between his sister and his mother, and began walking out the door. "Er…okay…I love you, Mom."_

"_I love you too, Gohan," Chi Chi replied half-heartedly. After her son had departed, she looked at her impish little girl and sighed. It was not, she knew, that Ada wanted to get her way just to prove she could control her mother, or that she was a bad child. She was just…different…and in need of attention, and perhaps a little lonely. Chi Chi was well aware that, between helping Gohan work through his advanced junior high coursework and keeping the house, there just wasn't time for the girl. At least not as much time as Ada wanted or needed. Part of Chi Chi felt almost debilitating pangs of guilt when she considered how little time she spent with her daughter as compared to how much she had spent with Gohan when he was younger. And yet the woman was convinced the situations were too different to draw a comparison._

_Something gnawed at Chi Chi nearly every time she laid eyes on her daughter, an anger of which she was terribly ashamed. It wasn't Ada's fault, of course, but Chi Chi saw in the little girl the gods mocking the destruction of the family she had worked so hard to create. It was a force strong enough to draw her away from her child sometimes. Chi Chi loved Ada, of course, but she did not know how to reach the little girl. She doubted she even had the strength to try anymore._

"_I guess we'll try again tomorrow," she said to her daughter with a sigh._

**xxx**

"I repeat, the androids have moved into West City. Every emergency response team in a several-hundred kilometer radius has been dispatched Pepper City to assist the injured and trapped. Because of this, the West City Chief of Metropolitan Police has released a statement of extreme caution to West City residents. His words are as follows: 'The small number of emergency personnel available is causing a much slower response to reports from more recently-attacked areas. We _urge_ you to take cover immediately if you have not already done so. If you or a loved one is injured, _do not_ leave your basement, crawlspace, shelter, or other covered area; wait for help _where you are_. Teams are doing their best to tend to as many victims in as little time is possible.' There you have it, folks, a first-hand report of the precarious situation in which we now find ourselves…"

The blasts, which Bulma estimated as being around ten blocks away from the Capsule Corporation complex, had gotten so much more frequent in the last hour that none of the four people now sitting at the Briefs' kitchen table even flinched at the deafening noises. Bulma had not taken her eyes off the radio in twenty minutes, the cup of tea in her hand spilling every once in a while when her hands took to shaking from either anger or fear. Chi Chi merely gnawed on her thumbnail in silence. From time to time, she began to worry about whether Gohan was out challenging those two monsters; these anxiety attacks sometimes lasted for a full minute before reality again set in.

Not until eleven p.m. that night did the radio report the androids' sudden flight from the scene (perhaps, Trunks thought grimly, out of boredom); still, rescue teams recommended staying underground in case of a follow-up attack.

"You know, Chi," Bulma said after hearing this announcement, "you two probably shouldn't go out again until tomorrow; why don't you shack up with us tonight?"

"Oh, that's really very kind of you, but I would hate to intrude, and-"

"Honestly, girl! You think taking the safer route is intruding? Please!" Bulma replied, rolling her eyes and batting the air with a hand. "You and Ada can take Trunks' bed; he just put on some clean sheets."

Within the hour, the house was silent but for the steady, quiet breathing of its occupants. Or some of its occupants, anyway. Trunks, for one, found himself lying awake very, very early into the morning in his pile of blankets on the kitchen floor.

His looming journey into the past was approaching rather more quickly than he expected, and he felt somewhat disconcerted about it. Yes, Trunks wanted to return to help the others defeat the androids and to learn more about them in the process. He was also looking forward to spending some time with his father, even though the two hours he had been around the grumpy man already were less than encouraging. And yet something was gnawing at him, something he couldn't quiet pinpoint. Trunks guessed that it was the conviction that he was needed in his own time. After the conversation with Ada during the ball, he had begun to worry about making another trip in the time machine. What if the desire to stay in the past returned? Would he honestly be able to look at Goku, content and at peace again, after the androids were defeated and the past was made right and not have the urge to stay? Guilt flooded into the warrior's mind as he thought back to the incredulous way Ada had looked at him that night.

_Crrreeeeeaaaakkkkk._

Tangled in the mess of blankets, Trunks suddenly jumped up into a sitting position.

"I didn't mean to scare you," came a soft whisper from the hallway. Ada was standing in front of his bedroom, closing the door behind her. She had a quilt wrapped around her and small, dark rings under her eyes. Trunks smiled at her, his heartbeat slowing back to its normal pace; she returned the gesture as she approached him.

"Don't worry about it," he replied, his mood steadily climbing for some reason.

"Mind if I sit?" Ada asked. He nodded, and she joined him atop the pile of blankets strewn across the floor.

"Can't sleep?" he inquired, scooting over a little to give her some more room.

"Not with Mom talking in her sleep all night," she returned with a wan smile. Trunks wondered whether something else was bothering her. "Do you always do this?" Ada looked over at him intently.

"What?"

"Sleep in front of the door when there's a threat?"

"Oh," he said somewhat sheepishly. "Usually, yes. I know it seems a little ridiculous, but I've tried just lying in bed and torturing myself over how there's nothing else I can do. That doesn't seem to work too well, either. I figure if one of these days, they come to finish me off, I can at least keep them away from Mom. " Trunks looked up at the radio in frustration as he finished.

"As long as you're not thinking about fighting them," Ada said with a (relieved, Trunks thought) sigh.

"Why do you say that?"

"I just think it would be best to wait to challenge them until you come back from your next trip. It seems senseless to try before that."

Trunks wondered at her propensity for safety and peace, two things the younger Ada had never really cared to talk about. In her youth, she had wanted nothing else but to fight, and not primarily to stop the androids' destruction like Trunks but rather to prove that she could. Since those days, both he and she had changed dramatically in their motivations for battle and attitudes toward violence. Trunks, on the one hand, had tried desperately to steel himself against becoming emotionally involved where the androids were concerned. His anger at Gohan's death combined with his frustration over the injustices the monsters committed on a daily basis had once made him blind with rage, so much so that it had hindered him in battle. These days, he tried to view it all in a businesslike fashion, something that worried him when, every great once in a while, he felt the slightest tinge of bloodlust. Trunks was ashamed of what he dreaded was a developing brutality within him. According to Gohan, it was normal for anyone with Saiyan blood to enjoy fighting, but Trunks could not help feeling that such a trait showed the nastier part of his paternal side that he would rather have kept in check.

Ada, on the other hand, had grown more comfortable with the idea of life without any destruction, whether it was caused by the androids or by her. She was much like her brother in that fashion, Trunks observed, in that she resorted to violence only as a means to a greater end. He envied her for growing into a more mentally mature fighter while he slid into the throes of instinct.

The silence that then fell between Ada and Trunks had a different feel to it than those previous. It was not, Trunks noticed, the result of an awkward pause or misspoken phrase; the air was not heavy; he did not feel the pressing need to say something quickly in order to salvage the conversation. Rather, as they sat there on the floor, their thoughts turned inward, the quiet of the empty space around them seemed peaceful. Finally, Trunks spoke.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," Ada said, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Why didn't you want to go back to the past?" he asked, trying to gauge her reaction to what he knew to be a sensitive subject. Ada looked at the floor for several minutes before finally turning to him. At that moment, Trunks noticed how distant she seemed despite their proximity. It worried him; only hours before she had been fine. Had the girl had a nightmare, perhaps?

"I didn't want to meet him…Goku…" she said softly, pulling the quilt more tightly around her. "I know…that you don't understand that. It would be best to just leave it alone."

"Why not?" Trunks inquired earnestly, completely ignoring the second half of Ada's statement. Her features hardened.

"I said you wouldn't get it," Ada responded.

"So help me try." She wanted to turn away and ignore his plea, but his concern seemed too genuine to disregard.

"You're going to think I'm a terrible person," she prefaced flatly.

"That would be damn near impossible," Trunks thought aloud, letting a few locks of hair fall in front of his cheeks in case the veil of darkness somehow betrayed to her his blushing. Ada sighed, looking at the kitchen wall straight ahead of her.

"As far as I'm concerned," she stated rather harshly, "Gohan was all that I needed. And besides, what kind of a person makes his family live on tournament prize money and handouts from his father-in-law because he doesn't have a job? Or marries someone because he was brow-beaten into it? What kind of a man is that?" Ada was now visibly upset, tears gathering in her eyes. Trunks regretted pushing the issue; her answer left him at an utter loss for words. He sensed that she didn't really believe the things she was saying but was nonetheless troubled by the thought of her father. "I don't want a father; not now. Gohan was enough…" she added breathlessly, gulping back tears, "…and even he left in the end."

Silence thicker than fog. For half a minute, Trunks could think of nothing to say to her, nothing to do that would ameliorate anything the girl was feeling. The remnants of her bitter words seemed to hang in the air; they had been desperately tucked away in Ada for too long to leave so easily now.

"But at least," she began after some time, frowning, "my mother and father loved each other…eventually. I think. There aren't any more love stories." Ada paused, some recollection or other bringing a smile to her face. "When I was a little girl, I was convinced that my brother would get rid of those monsters, that everyone would be happy. That I'd find grow up to look like a princess, I would find my Prince Charming, and he would love me just like in the storybooks. And then I would get married, and ride off with him on a white horse into the sunset…happily ever after." She chuckled a little. "The only stories we have to tell are the ones about narrowly escaping death yet again and living triumphantly to see another sunrise."

Ada glanced quickly over at Trunks and began to blush. "I'm rambling…sorry."

"There's no such thing as fairytales," he said thoughtfully, brushing off her senseless apology, "but there will always be 'happily ever afters'. It's just the nature of people, I think, no matter what the situation. It's all about finding your way to that point."

"Maybe so," Ada conceded, considering with a smile how much the young man beside her had grown into himself, even in the last year.

"Love story or not, as long as feelings are genuine, maybe two people actually have a chance. But if it's going to be substantial, it has to be based on something real. Not just…fleeting lust," Trunks said with a frown, lying back down on the blankets, his fingers laced behind his head. Ada turned and rested her eyes on him, wondering if the mention of her parents had led Trunks to think about his.

"There are those for whom passion is the most intimate emotion they're capable of displaying," Ada replied. "It can be terribly powerful. Of course, I think pure love has a finer quality to it, but passion has its place."

As he listened to her, Trunks found himself again observing the features of her face and the shadows cast across them in the dark. He noticed that, with each word she spoke, a strange and powerful feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach, and he gulped at the realization that he liked it. Trunks was pulled from his reverie by the quiet yawn of the girl sitting next to him. "I suppose that I should get back to bed."

Trunks, making no audible response, surveyed her carefully. Ada's gestures, movements, and expressions betrayed that whatever had really kept her awake that even was still lingering on the edge of her mind. She seemed almost frightened, perhaps fighting a latent panic of some kind that was waiting patiently beneath the surface of her thoughts until she dared to let her guard down as she dreamt. Whatever the cause of Ada's strange demeanor, it left Trunks feeling disconcerted.

Much to his surprise, however, she did not rise to leave. Rather, she slowly moved to rest her head gently on Trunks' shoulder while allowing one hand to lightly grasp his upper arm for support. The young man felt immeasurable warmth radiate from the points of contact to every inch of his body, and he closed his eyes contentedly.

Trunks felt ridiculous at how such a simple, probably meaningless gesture on Ada's part sent tiny waves of ecstasy through him. She was only a girl, he reasoned, and one to whom he had no special attachment, and yet he desperately wanted her to stay there with him, wanted to take the fear out of her eyes somehow. He marveled at this girl who needed no one and nothing to protect her, who kept to herself, who showed everyone a heart of stone. Trunks questioned whether she had ever let anyone see in her even a touch of vulnerability, and what it meant about the two of them if that was what she was showing him now.

Trunks watched wisps of her ebony hair blowing to and fro in the breeze from the ceiling fan. He explored the uneasiness in her _ki_ and felt inexplicable happiness at the knowledge that it had relaxed almost to normalcy in the several minutes she had been lying up against him. He expected to feel his heart thumping furiously from his proximity to her; but he was strangely calm, even serene. Trunks still felt his _ki _erupt into chaotic jolts when he was so near to her and wished that she couldn't feel it.

But just then, at that moment, with fire engine sirens sounding in the distance and the outside world fraught with disorder and pain, Trunks Brief could not think of anything but the lovely Ada, who seemed finally to be resting peacefully at his side.

**Postscript: **I don't have too much to say except that I've rewritten most of this chapter like three times. It's finally where I want it to be, and I'm actually happy with the ending and with where it's headed! Sweet! As we're moving in the general direction of the 'romance' part of the story (No, I wasn't lying in the genre specification!), I thought that I would let you know now right up front that this will not be a lemon story. I know, I know; some of you are probably stalking off grumpily right now, but that's just not my style. There are plenty of good, citrus-y stories out there, but this isn't one of 'em. You'll find out why later- part of the reason is actually tied into the story. The T rating will stay in place, however, in case I get a little creative with the language and because there will be sexual references. Mostly around the time that our hero goes back to the past and spends some quality time with dear ol' dad. I've already written quite a bit of Vegeta's dialogue. It's more fun than the fucking carnival. Now that I've successfully earned the T rating with my blatant disregard for appropriate uses of the 'f-word', I'll quit rambling. But not before I say THANK YOU again to all of my readers and especially to my amazing reviewers!


	9. Follow Through

"_And when despair tears me in two,_

_who can I turn to but you?_

_You know who I am;_

_take me as I am."_

_-"Take Me As I Am" from _Jekyll and Hyde

**xxx**

CHAPTER 8

When Ada awoke early the next morning to the sound of the radio, she found herself wrapped in several layers of quilts, apparently having slept rather comfortably for being on a cold tile floor. She looked around the entire kitchen, rubbing her eyes and stretching, before realizing that Trunks was gone. Only then did her groggy mind tune in to the intermittent high-pitched beeps and flustered verbal warnings of the emergency alert system.

"– only beginning to delve into the wreckage of Pepper and West City from yesterday evening's attacks. Information filtering in this morning reports today's android activity as having commenced shortly after dawn – about thirty minutes ago now – in suburban West City, about ten miles south of Route 43T. Local residents believe up to one hundred people, as many as thirty of them children, are missing from their homes."

Ada's breath came out in spurts, sharp like shards of glass and almost as fragile, as she squeezed her eyes shut for several moments to gather her thoughts. She was here. Trunks was gone. The androids had come back for round two. Trunks was gone. Her mother and Bulma were asleep.

_Trunks was gone._

She threw the mess of blankets away from her and stood, her feet sliding a bit on the kitchen floor as she began racing to the Briefs' coat closet. Ada threw open the door and began picking through hangers. No jacket. No sword.

"Fuck," she muttered, beads of sweat now sprouting up across her forehead. Ada, shifting into panic mode, lunged for the laundry basket sitting in the hallway and began tearing through it, searching desperately for anything to put on over the camisole and light, tiny, cotton shorts Bulma had leant her the night before. She flung away several pair of boxers, socks, and jeans, as well as a few tee shirts, before finding a baggy old Capsule Corp. sweatshirt. Less than a minute after hearing the radio alert, Son Ada was stampeding up the stairs from the Briefs' basement and sprinting out of the dilapidated main building of the CC complex and into the heart of West City.

Ada ran as fast as she was able, mentally cursing her inability to fly thanks to the smoke and debris floating above the city. Between the sirens and shouts, Ada could hardly hear herself think. She realized as she passed Gohan's old middle school that she had no idea where she was going or how she planned on finding Trunks. As things were now, his _ki_ was too faint to follow. She reckoned that he could be anywhere; hiding under a destroyed car, bleeding to death in a back alleyway, at the bottom of a heap of building rubble. Such thoughts coupled with the ash and dust in the air triggered a sudden torrent of tears from the young woman, and she began to sob furiously as she had not done since her brother's death.

The explosions signaling the androids' rampage had gotten farther and farther away; Ada assumed that they had returned to the suburbs on the other side of the city. At least, she thought, their being gone already meant one less thing to worry about. All she had to do was find Trunks.

She ran faster, pumping her legs until her feet began to burn, only vaguely aware of the myriad people dashing past her in the other direction. Ada heard, as if from miles in the distance, the shout of one of the people leaving the city.

"You're going the wrong way!" the middle-aged man burst out in anguish, clutching his young daughter to his chest as he rushed away from the hellish inferno engulfing what little was left of downtown West City. Ada ignored him, attempting, in spite of the situation, to quiet her mind and channel her _ki_; without it, she would never find Trunks. The girl focused in on his rapidly-draining energy, trying desperately to gain even the slightest knowledge about his location.

"Please…" she breathed, teeth chattering. "Just give me something, Trunks…please…"

He did.

For only a moment, Ada felt a miniscule burst of channeled energy, one silent, final plea sent out on the winds of the maelstrom. It was enough.

Sprinting blindly, Ada turned down a side street and jumped over the remains of what had been a rather large corporate headquarters before the android attacks of several months ago. Swerving to the right, she ran around the back of an old parking garage and onto 35th Street, a deserted thoroughfare in the center of the main West City shopping district. Now, the few buildings that were still intact had not the latest designer handbags but plywood boards in the windows.

It took Ada only seconds to spot Trunks, who was lying face-down on the roadway. She ran to him and, after taking his wrist in her hand to check for a pulse, listened for breathing. He was alive. She sat beside him, more relieved than even she could fathom at that moment. Ada turned him over and gulped, holding his limp body with one arm and using the hand of the other to assess his state. She ran her fingers gently along his face, wiping away the semi-dried blood and dirt around the lesions on his forehead, cheeks, and chin. As Ada removed his blue Capsule Corporation jacket, she saw the damage done to one of his arms. The worst injuries came from his legs, but even those were not broken. Trunks' wounds, though, were deep and many, and he was losing blood quickly. Ada picked up his fragile body, set him gently across one of her shoulders, and headed for the Brief residence.

**xxx**

"How could you possibly be so stupid?" Trunks heard someone muttering angrily. The voice was close, he could tell, but exactly where, he had no clue. It seemed to echo all around him, from every side, every angle. When he slowly opened his eyelids, the fluorescent light that flooded into his dilated pupils caused the sensation of having a particularly sharp ice pick shoved through his skull. Trunks squeezed his eyes shut once more, his throbbing head unforgiving of the mishap. As the young man began to regain consciousness, his brain flipped into overdrive while it tried simultaneously to ask and answer questions about the circumstances he was in. A slideshow of memory snippets ran through his mind at what seemed like the speed of light: events, faces, scents, sounds. None of them made a bit of sense. Trunks couldn't even call to mind where he had been before falling into what his body seemed to think was a very deep sleep.

"Have you decided to return to the world of the living?" That voice again. It was bitter, upset, frustrated…but relieved. Perhaps even happy. He could not tell. Trunks decided to try opening his eyes a second time. For a few moments that seemed to him like blind hours, he could see only white light. Then, shapes began to appear: something spinning on the ceiling, the outline of a figure next to him. He blinked slowly, his piercing headache becoming a dull pain somewhere next to his right ear. It took only moments for him to realize that the hurt in his head was nothing compared to the stinging sensation that seemed to be coursing through his right leg, or the pain that came with his first sharp intake of breath.

Trunks started to panic. He was injured, he began to understand, although the 'how' and 'why' parts were still unclear. As his yet-unfocused eyes darted around the blobs of color in what he assumed must be a room of some kind, his heart started to race. He attempted to lift his head but felt a soft force pressing it gently back to the pillow.

"Not so fast," came the voice again, this time almost in a whisper. "You're in no condition to sit up yet." As his ears closed in on the source, he turned his head to the right. His vision having returned to normal, Trunks looked at the girl sitting next to him. His heartbeat slowed.

There was Ada, sitting on the edge of his bed with his arm lying limply in her lap. She was blotting away at a relatively large gash on the inside of his forearm, disposing of bloody gauze pads in a small trashcan beside her. After picking up another large pad, she grabbed a white bottle from the bedside table and placed the pad on top of it. Holding her thumb over the top of the bottle, she tipped it upside down until the gauze was soaked through with clear liquid. Ada's other hand, lightly holding Trunks' arm steady from underneath, tightened its grip somewhat as she gently pressed the gauze pad onto the open wound.

Pain shot through Trunks' veins, numbing his nerves and shaking his bones. He involuntarily jerked the wounded arm out of Ada's hand and pulled it to his chest, his teeth grinding against one another furiously. Startled, she gasped and dropped the bandage she was holding.

"I know it hurts…but alcohol's all we have here…and we can't risk going out right now…" She spoke quietly, her expression pained as she placed the back of her hand on his forehead. "It's only this painful because the wound is so deep. As long as nothing gets infected, though, we haven't got anything to worry about." She was trying to smile at him, to give him some kind of reassurance, but her eyes were red and watery and, Trunks noticed as he surveyed her for the first time since coming to, she looked terribly disheveled.

"Please…" she pled, touching his arm again. His muscles weakened when she turned her intent gaze upon him, and he let her take his arm. She laid it carefully across her thighs and pressed another gauze pad onto the gash to collect the pus and blood emitted when Trunks had jerked away. Ada then began brushing the tips of her fingers along the palm of his hand, and he felt himself yielding to her touch. After letting go, she commenced bandaging his wound. As she worked on it, she frowned.

"You're smart enough to have figured out by now that there's no point in trying to be noble. And," she added, "as much as it might be part of who you are, you ought to just run the other way when your pride is urging you to do something. I would rather have you sulking around with a wounded ego than dead because of your arrogance." She paused, putting the finishing touches on the bandage. "Well? Aren't you going to say something? You haven't spoken since you woke up."

"Wounded ego it is," Trunks replied with some effort, his throat dry. That, he noted with inner glee, had worked a smile out of Ada, albeit a weak one. Letting him take his arm back, she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. He only looked up at her curiously, in a strangely meditative mood for having just regained consciousness. Then again, he tended to feel that way after narrowly escaping death.

"How is it," Trunks asked her, some of the usual shyness creeping back into his voice, "that you always seem to catch me at my worst moments? When I'm hopeless, or weak, or angry, or…" He surveyed his body with distaste. "…broken? And you're still sitting next to me in spite of it?"

"Because if this is what you call your worst," she said softly with a playful smirk, "then it would be foolish to stay away." He looked at her warily, as though she were attempting some kind of flattery. Ada continued. "Hopelessness is a result of caring deeply about something, isn't it? And weakness is relative, especially in terms of _human_ frailty. Anger is part of being passionate…" She delicately laid a hand on his chest, bruised from the blows that had broken his ribs. Trunks noticed for the first time that he didn't have a shirt on and was completely naked beneath the blanket resting just above his waist. In spite of his characteristic modesty, the thought didn't bother him at all. As he looked up at the girl whose touch made him tremble with a kind of ecstatic anticipation and yet simultaneously relaxed him, Trunks realized that her every gaze seemed to strip him bare of all pretenses, physical and mental, no matter what. Instead of being on edge, he was at ease.

"And brokenness," Ada continued, "is fleeting. I suppose it's a side effect of courage." In the silence that followed, the two merely looked at one another. A million questions were exploding in both of their minds, and as a result, Ada found herself wanting to blurt out several things at the recovering man. She stood from the bed and combed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I should go – you need rest," she said simply, mustering up a smile and grabbing the wound dressings from the bedside table.

"Wait –!" Trunks said, rather more loudly than he had intended, as he pushed his palms into the mattress and began pulling himself up into a sitting position. Ada looked at him and blinked, surprised that he had regained any semblance of strength so quickly.

"I told you, Trunks- you're supposed to be resting!" she told him, irritated at his blatant disregard for her advice.

"Just-" He winced only slightly after finally leaning against the headboard of the bed- his bed, he noticed. Trunks realized only then that they were in the basement of his home, in his very room. The sheet and blanket began to slip from his waist until, reddening, he grabbed them and pulled them back up. When he looked up again, he saw Ada still standing near the foot of the bed. He was surprised to see that she looked a little nervous.

"You really should get some sleep…to heal up," she said, the slightest hint of panic in her voice. Trunks wondered at the change in her demeanor and assumed that it had to have come from his sudden determination to talk with her.

"I'm fine," he told her, smiling. "How long was I out, anyway?"

"Well," Ada replied, looking at the clock before embarking on a few mental calculations. "We brought you back here at six-thirty yesterday morning, and it's almost nine a.m. now…about twenty-three hours?"

"Then I think I have the stamina to stay awake for more than ten minutes," Trunks said plainly, the look in his eyes playfully daring Ada to say otherwise. She succumbed, sighing softly before reclaiming her place on the bed. Trunks gingerly moved to one side, silently inviting her to come nearer to him. Ada kneeled, sitting on her feet, mildly unnerved by her face being a mere twelve inches from that of the injured man sitting before her. The startling proximity coupled with her state of mind after a great many sleepless hours by Trunks' side drew out of her unparalleled audacity.

"What were you thinking?" Ada asked him suddenly, her lips pursed and breathing staggered.

"Ada, don't do this," Trunks replied, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Can't you just…wait until later to badger me?"

"No," she stated simply. "You must be absolutely mad if you think I'm just letting this go. You almost got yourself killed. And what about the plan, huh?" He turned his head away from her, pretending to busy himself by reaching for the glass of water on the table.

"Answer me!" she demanded as she softly grabbed hold of his wrist. "What about going to the past to try to learn something about the androids first? What about the time machine? And your mother? Would you waste all of that by throwing yourself away?"

Trunks leaned forward and drew his arm away from her. "Is that what this is about? You're not upset because I almost died; you're just pissed off at me because my getting blown away would have spoiled everything?"

"How could you possibly say something like that to me?" Her voice dropped slowly into a whisper and then took on a sarcastic, bitter tone. "Or maybe you're right. When I found you lying out in the middle of the road, I just knew that I had to bring you back and make you all better so we could ship you back to the past."

_Found me in the road? _Only then did Trunks realize exactly why he hadn't lain across the filthy asphalt and bled to death. _Did _she_ come looking for me? And now she's…she's bandaging me…_ It even crossed his mind that Ada could be looking particularly rough because she'd sat with him all night, in the same spot where she had been when he awoke. _Just like in the movies…_ At which point Trunks promptly decided that thinking such things was ridiculous and vain and that he needed to stop doing it at once.

"I…I'm sorry," he stammered, watching her rub her tired eyes.

"Don't be," she said with an exhausted frown. "I just…wish you wouldn't have challenged them. They could have killed you if they wanted."

"Doesn't it bother you to go on hiding like this? Don't you ever just want to end it?"

"Every damn day, Trunks." Ada sighed and began twisting the end of her low ponytail. "But I'm also smart enough to know that, as much heartache and trouble as I've caused my mother in my life, if anything happened to me…" She shook her head and began chewing on her lower lip before setting her onyx eyes on Trunks again. "And it's no different with you, as invincible as you may feel sometimes. If something happened to you, there are…people…in your life who would be crushed. Tell me you're listening to me."

"I'm listening," he returned, taken by surprise as back into the pit of his stomach crept that familiar feeling of tumultuous lightness.

"Now promise you won't do anything else foolish," she huffed in exasperation. Trunks, now feeling sufficiently childish and small, merely looked at Ada before turning his eyes away again. He nearly fell out of the bed with shock when he felt Ada's fingers tenderly brush a lock of lavender hair from his eyes.

"Hey," she whispered with a smile. "It's not that I don't believe in you, alright? But no one lives forever."

**xxx**

"Hey you two!" At the familiar sound of Bulma's voice, Ada instinctively got up from her seat on the bed and, in the blink of an eye, began nervously heading for the door. The genius flashed Ada a sly smile as the latter made her exit.

"Hi, Bulma…I was just…going to go whip up some breakfast." A mere ten seconds after speaking her last sentence to Trunks, Ada was gone, a monstrous blush cascading down her cheeks. She felt like she had been caught in the middle of…well, she hadn't even been doing anything, she reasoned.

_Just caressing – wait! Don't use 'caressing'! That sounds so…so…ugh!_ Ada pushed her thoughts back into a mental safe and locked them there, attempting to set her mind on scrambled eggs and rice with milk.

Upon Ada's leaving, Bulma placed her hands on her hips and eyed her revived son with a curious smirk.

"Glad to see that you're finally awake, _dear_," she said, her intonation cluing Trunks in on what he feared would be an outpouring of biting commentary about his personal life.

"Thanks, Mom," he replied, sipping the glass of ice water sitting on his bedside table.

"So?" Bulma inquired with one eyebrow raised, taking a seat in what had been Ada's chair.

"What?" Trunks feigned genuine curiosity as best as he knew how.

"Don't give me that, young man! What in the world is going _on_ between you two? I saw how close you were! And the way you look at her when you don't think anyone else is watching…puh-_lease_, kid. I wasn't born yesterday, you know."

"Listen, Mom," he began, a stammer creeping into his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm…I'm exhausted. I think I'll just rest some more."

"Ugh!" she huffed crossly, folding her arms. "What is it with you men? I swear, Trunks, if you were any more secretive about this sort of thing, I would have to start calling you Vegeta."

As he lay back down, Trunks furrowed his brow. When he was younger, he delighted in comparisons with the father he never knew. There were some he didn't mind hearing even now: his appearance, his strength, sometimes his fighting style. Yet, any mention of similarities pertaining to his actions, his speech, his personality traits, or his…_emotions_…made his blood run cold. That was the part of him of which he worked tirelessly to cleanse himself. Trunks realized, of course, that his genes did not dictate his future or the man he hoped to be; still, something in the back of his mind panicked every once in a while. Fate, he feared, would condemn him to grow into a bitter man without real concern or love for anyone other than himself, without check on the bloodlust within him that continued to grow with each battle…without hope.

He would fight that possibility endlessly, Trunks decided as he listened to his mother gather up in her arms the various bandages, creams, and solutions next to his bed. He could never let himself become that man.

"I understand if you don't want to talk about it," Bulma conceded some time later, her voice now kind and even. "But Trunks…"

He looked up at her, his mother, who was now smiling knowingly at him. She turned out the lamp on his bedside table.

"You can't let this one get away," she said quietly. "I know you've got a lot on your plate right now, kid, but if your actions around Ada are any indication of your feelings about her…you've gotta follow through with them." And with that, the facetious but sage Bulma Brief departed, leaving her son alone to his thoughts.

**xxx**

**Postscript**: On some advice from **Draquia**, I've decided to **allow anonymous reviews**. If you've been reading but haven't dropped me a line yet, this is your chance. I really, really value others' opinions, and I would love to hear from you! Oh yes, and I've been tossing an idea around in my head about perhaps writing a single chapter in first person and splitting it between Ada and Trunks. If I do indeed decide to do that, don't freak out; it's just a one-time thing. I believe that's all of the housekeeping I have for now. Thank you, as always, for reading!


	10. No Place That Far

CHAPTER 9

_The Prince of Saiyans lay restlessly in his bed and stared out of the window, the full moon, glowing above the lights of West City, silently mocking what had become his existence. The walls of the human structure far too thin for his sensitive ears, Vegeta could hear in the room next to him the mother of his half-breed, purple-haired child attempting to coo the whelp into another short slumber . The baby had yet to sleep through the night, a fact that Vegeta often relished spewing when arguing with the insufferable Bulma. Only moments later, he heard the almost alien sound of someone rapping on his door._

"_Hnn," he growled testily, turning over and burying his face into the down-stuffed pillow. The creak of the opening door grated against his ears, and he heard the woman's familiar footsteps on the floor._

"_Vegeta," she huffed, exhaustion apparent in her voice._

"_Woman–" he returned in a tone more characteristic of the ruthless slave of Frieza than of the man that Bulma had invited into her bed so many months ago. "I don't w–"_

"…_want to be bothered,' yeah, I know," she snapped. "But I finally got Trunks to sleep again, and if I don't get some rest myself I might just pass out. The baby monitor broke–"_

"_So fix it! I thought you were a _genius_," he taunted, his speech still muffled by the pillow._

"_Did you ever think that maybe letting me finish my sentences would get me out of your presence more quickly, Your Highness?" Bulma snarled through clenched teeth._

_Vegeta rose and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up to face her. "Do not mock me, woman." They stared at one another in silence for over a minute, eyes locked in a mental battle of wills._

"_All I was going to ask," Bulma finally whispered tersely, "was that you come get me if you hear Trunks crying. That's it, alright? But if you're really incapable of doing something so very _simple_," she spewed the word, "for your own son, I'll just try to keep myself awake. I apologize for disturbing your moping."_

_With that, Bulma turned her back to him and walked quickly and severely out the door. Vegeta merely lay back down on the bed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He absolutely could not understand the audacity of the woman. Entire races had once trembled at the thought of a visit from the prince, and yet he had somehow ended up sleeping in a spare bedroom of his lover's parents' mansion, the room next to him home to his weakling son who was always being coddled in the way so typical of human spawn. He curled his lip in disgust. This was the life he had made for himself. He had no motivation, no cares, no purpose any longer._

_The only thing with which he had concerned himself since the death of Frieza had been rotting six feet under the earth at the foot of Mount Paozu for – how long had it been now? – over half a year. Vegeta was what he had always dreamt of becoming – the strongest being in the universe. Yet, he had not earned the title, he never truly would, and that truth kept him awake most nights. He did not even train any longer; he could find no reason to. What would be the point? What battle could he not win? The miserable Vegeta asked himself this over and over, desperately clinging to the hope that one day there would be a legitimate answer._

**xxx**

As she sat in a deep slouch on the sofa next to her mother, Son Ada ran her right index finger along the circumference of the antique mixing bowl she held. Her finger now dripping with brownie batter, she brought it to her mouth and licked it clean, savoring the sweetness with a smile. The comforting scent of baking desserts wafting about the room, Ada looked over at her mother, who was herself nursing a large, batter-covered, wooden spatula.

"Mom," Ada said as she took her mother's spoon and her own bowl over to the sink. "We should do this more often."

"Oh, you're probably right," Chi Chi sighed, getting up from the couch and peeking into the oven. "I guess I just like to save sweets for special occasions. Sugar's so expensive nowadays –"

"Wait – what's the special occasion?" Ada inquired, rolling up her sleeves before filling the sink with steaming water and running dish soap under the faucet.

"Well," Chi Chi responded, a wry, sad smile painting her lips as she joined her daughter at the sink. "Two hundred acres of forest burned only miles away from us, several hundred homes were destroyed, and we're still breathing. I think that qualifies, dear."

Ada nodded and smiled back at her mother. She looked out of the window directly in front of her and sighed, wondering at how distant the pain of the world seemed from the safety of her own home. Of course, she realized, it wasn't true safety as much as it was simply living so far away from civilization as to go unnoticed. Even the androids seemed loath to expend the effort of flying such a distance. _But they won't stay away forever. Trunks was right…one of these days, they're going to take us out once and for all._

It reminded Ada of something her grandfather once told her. She reckoned she must have been about eight or nine, and a small spat with her mother had turned terribly sour. After a rather long shouting match, Ada had decided to give up and run away from home…again. Each time she had done it, and there had been many, the escape had typically ended with the little girl sulking back to her house, apologizing to her mother, and eating cold leftovers from dinner by herself. This particular time, though, Ada had not come back. After an entire night of worrying, a very hysterical Chi Chi had, along with her son ("Can't you sense her energy?!"), taken to the forest in hopes of tracking down her incorrigible daughter, who thought it would be terribly sneaky and clever of her to suppress her _ki_. The Ox King eventually joined the search, and sometime in mid-morning happened upon his granddaughter asleep inside a hollow old tree. It had taken a while to convince the little girl, but eventually, the pair began walking back toward the Son home.

"I didn't even do anything this time…" Ada had lamented, scratching a mosquito bite on her arm.

"I know, sweetie. Your mother probably would've apologized for getting angry with you eventually, but since you ran off, well, you'd better brace yourself," Ox King replied firmly but, as always, with kindness.

"She's always mad at me," the child said. "And it's not even my fault lots of times."

"Ada," her grandfather had told her wisely, "it may not be. But you've gotta face it head-on even if you don't wanna. You can't run away from trouble; there's no place that far."

_Not even the mountains_, Ada thought with a sigh as she scanned the myriad azure peaks on the horizon. Fiercest among them, Mount Paozu cast its undying watch across the East.

"Isn't it just beautiful? All these years, and it still takes my breath away," Chi Chi said softly, her gaze and thoughts echoing those of her daughter. "You know, when your father and I first got married, I was kind of skeptical of this place – not to mention nervous about living so far away from Dad. But Goku promised that it would be perfect…and it was."

As she began to scrub a measuring cup, Ada turned to see her mother wearing that wistful, melancholy smile that so thoroughly defined her. Anymore, Chi Chi seemed to be running solely on nostalgia. She had no husband and no son, and it hurt Ada to admit it, but the woman probably expected the androids to take her daughter sooner or later, too. Yet, Chi Chi spent each day as she would have done otherwise. She rose with the sun, washed and dressed, and commenced her housekeeping chores. Ada tried to help every once in a great while, tried to make dinner or do the laundry, but her mother refused to allow it. Ada could not help but wonder if nothing more than sheer strength of mind and the monotony of daily life were keeping the woman alive.

"Mama," Ada said suddenly, running the dish sponge in her hand around the interior of a bowl in the sink. Chi Chi blinked, coming out of her reverie at the sound of her daughter's voice. The girl cleared her through and silently prayed that her mother would stay calm. "I've been thinking over the last couple of days, after that last attack…and…well, the androids hit some of the mountain villages this time. They were really, really close to here, you know? And if they happened to decide it was time to finish us off…or even if they came across the house and remembered it…well, I just…" She took a breath before blurting out the rest of her thought. "…I just don't think it's safe here anymore." Ada sighed heavily and began rinsing dishes, somewhat afraid to look at her mother in case the older woman suddenly exploded.

"Are you suggesting that there's any place that really _is _safe?" Chi Chi inquired, clearly rather peeved.

"You know that's not what I'm saying. But there _are_ apartments undergr-"

Chi Chi dropped the drying towel she was holding and planted her hands on her hips. "Listen here, Ada," she said sternly, "_I_ do not _hide_. Especially from a pair of metal _dolls_. If they want me, they're gonna have to face me head on." She then exhaled fiercely before suddenly recoiling, and then massaged her temples with exhaustion. "And besides…I could never leave this place. This has been my life since I was seventeen. Your father carried me over that threshold, and I never looked back." She leaned against the countertop, looking pensive and worn beyond her years.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Ada replied after a few moments. "I just…want you to be safe, that's all."

"And I appreciate the thought, sweetie," Chi Chi responded. She then blinked, and Ada got the impression that her mother was trying to push a flood of memories from her mind. The older woman soon brushed several stray hairs from her eyes and forced away the somber mood of the conversation. "How about we get those brownies out of the oven, hm?"

After a dash of powdered sugar and some quick cutting work with a serving utensil, the two women were again relaxing on the couch, desserts and glasses of milk in hand.

"Ada," Chi Chi began after tucking away a few brownies, "What I mentioned earlier about your father and me…it got me thinking. You know, by the time I was your age, I already had a toddler! Isn't that wild?"

"Yeah…" Ada replied, gulping at the mental picture of being married and chasing around a child instead of sitting around and stuffing herself with sweets.

"That made me wonder – when exactly do you plan on trying to find a husband? I mean, you're getting older all the time, and every android attack takes a few more handsome young bachelors off the market."

A horrified Ada turned to her mother, expecting the woman to be laughing at her own joke (and in terrible taste, she noted). To her chagrin, Chi Chi was actually gazing thoughtfully into the distance, absent-mindedly taking another bite of brownie here and there.

"You've got to be kidding," Ada said breathlessly, her appetite slipping away. Her mother snapped her gaze toward the girl and narrowed her eyes. _And here it comes_.

"After everything you've put me through, don't you think it's only _fair_ that you give me grandchildren before I die? Well _DON'T YOU_?"

"Mom, really. Let's talk about this some other time, okay?" Ada laughed nervously, licking powdered sugar from her fingers. Chi Chi crossed her arms and turned her nose into the air.

"Hmph. Well, don't think I'm just going to drop it. I'll have you married before you know it."

"Lovely," Ada said as she stood and managed to let out a terribly phony yawn. "It's been really great getting to chat and such, and the brownies were delicious, but I should really be getting to bed. All of the clean-up volunteers are supposed to be in the city center by seven tom–"

"Oh, fine. Go to bed, then," Chi Chi sighed as her daughter kissed her on the cheek and started off toward the hallway. The woman then spoke excitedly: "Maybe you'll meet someone while you're helping out! Be sure you put on some nice perfume before you go, and maybe a bit of blush–"

"'Night, Mom," Ada groaned as she faked obliviousness and continued toward her room. She had nearly shut the door when she heard a somewhat faint shout from the living room.

"Ada!"

"Hm?" The girl cringed, then stopped, dragged herself back down the hall, and looked tiredly at her mother. Two marriage lectures in the same night would really be over-doing it. _I know she's a little insane and really old-fashioned, but honestly…_

"Honey," Chi Chi said, her eyes strangely kind; her smile, bittersweet. "I hope you know that, as much as I want to see all those things happen for you…and as much as I want grandchildren soon…I hate that it means letting you go. The idea of losing you scares me to death."

Ada felt a tug in her chest and wondered if her mother was feeling alright. The girl figured that she could count on two hands the number of times in her life that Chi Chi had allowed such sentiments to pass from her lips. She always knew, of course, that her mother loved her, but she also knew that the woman had more often seemed to favor being rid of the girl. Ada did not, until the two years prior, get hugs or kisses from Chi Chi, nor did she hear, as so many children do, how loved, or beautiful, or…wanted…she was. Sorrow pervaded the Son house, mourning so complete that it affected how the family lived every part of every day. Love simply had not fit. It almost frightened Ada that Chi Chi was actually beginning to change, if only subtly.

"Mama," Ada assured her, "even if you tried to, you could never lose me." With a smile and a wave, the young woman strolled down the hallway and through her door, the comfort of her bed calling to her.

**xxx**

**Postscript:** Yes, I know that I totally suck for doing such a short chapter after the rather long wait. In my defense, however, I've had absolutely horrendous writer's block. I've toyed with a million different ideas but pitched most of them. After arguing with myself about which direction to go for the last week and coming up empty, I'm going to turn to you, my lovely readers, and ask what you would like to hear more about. More romance, more action, more flashbacks – what would you prefer? I've got ideas for just about all of it, but I really need a hand choosing, at least until this writer's block goes away. It's killing me! As always, thank you for your reviewing and your support!


	11. Most Things Break

"_Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;_

_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world"_

_-"The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats_

**xxx**

"_Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child_

_Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,_

_He set the jug down slowly at his feet_

_With trembling care, knowing that most things break."_

_-"Mr. Flood's Party" by Edwin Arlington Robinson_

**xxx**

CHAPTER 10

_Bulma Brief had never been more exhausted in her life, and that, she thought, was really saying something. In the last two days, she had buried her best friend's young son, had been driven completely from her sleep by nightmares of the most horrendous sort, had kept a watchful eye on Chi Chi, who seemed to be silently coming undone, had tried to coax the hopeless woman's daughter into eating just a little or speaking the slightest word, and had attempted to comfort her own disconsolate child, all while pushing away the grief that was threatening to destroy her collectedness. It did not help that the gloom of the Son house seemed to be pulling her down inch by inch, choking her with its pervasiveness thickness._

_She mindlessly pulled from the microwave a large glass dish of steamed vegetables and gave them a few stirs for good measure before dividing them up onto five different plates. After adding the other components of the leftover-comprised meal, Bulma set the table._

"_Dinner!" she called, and her thirteen-year old son half-heartedly made his way into the Son house after spending the afternoon skipping stones across a nearby pond._

"_Glad to see you back, kiddo," Bulma smiled at her boy before planting a kiss atop his lavender head. "I hope you're hungry. And I didn't do any of the cooking – it's all leftovers from the funeral – so you don't have to worry about food poisoning." Her attempt to lighten the mood fell terribly flat; Trunks did not respond to her but instead silently took a seat at the table. Bulma frowned as she poured him a glass of water. The kid hadn't spoken in days. That, however, wasn't what worried Bulma. Rather, it was that he seemed unresponsive to everything. He had been heartbroken after Gohan's death but since then had refused to show even an iota of emotion. Bulma knew nothing of what was going on inside of Trunks' head, nor did she quite know what to say to comfort him, which frightened her._

"_I know how you like chicken…so I warmed up some of that," Bulma said, pushing Trunks' plate closer to him. As he gulped and began to slowly put food into his mouth, the gargantuan Ox King entered the room, leading his daughter by the hand. He mustered up the best smile he could and threw it Bulma's way before showing Chi Chi to a chair._

"_This looks great, Bulma. Thank you so much for your help," he said. "You've been a real lifesaver these past few days." Ox King took a seat for himself and then tucked a napkin into his shirt collar. The old man had to be absolutely beat, Bulma knew; he had not left his daughter's side since the fit she had after seeing Gohan's destroyed body lying limply in young Trunks' arms._

"_I'm happy to help," Bulma replied shakily, picking at her fingernails as she returned the weak smile. "Let me know if you'd like anything else – wait a sec…where's Ada?"_

"_Oh…she's probably still in her room. Hasn't really left it all day," Ox admitted with a frown as he gulped down some water. "I doubt she'll be down to eat."_

_Bulma made no reply but instead looked over at the staircase and chewed on her lower lip. "I'll be back in a minute," she said to no one in particular and began walking toward the stairs. Trunks hardly seemed to notice what was going on around him, while Ox simply shrugged and began kindly coaxing Chi Chi into eating a little._

_The disheveled inventor made her way up the staircase and into the darkened hallway of the Son home. The door on her immediate left – the one leading to Gohan's room – was shut, and she got the feeling that it would be so for some time. Bulma's target, however, was the door at the end of the hallway, also closed tightly. She approached the entrance and gave it a meek knock. After getting no answer, she tried again. Nothing. She took a deep breath, blinked rapidly several times, and turned the doorknob._

_Sitting on the floor with her back against the wall was Ada, her hair thrown back haphazardly into a ponytail, her face sallow. Bulma, closing the door behind her, felt a glimmer of hope after the girl looked up from her lap and over at the older woman._

"_Hey girlfriend," Bulma said softly. "Mind if I sit?" Ada merely looked at her feet in silence. _Better than a 'no'_, Bulma thought as she took a seat next to the child._

"_Your grandpa says you haven't really been in the mood to eat, but there's some dinner downstairs if you're hungry," she mentioned, looking over at Ada curiously. After sitting in silence for several long minutes, Bulma took a deep breath and put one of her hands on the girl's arm._

"_Ada," she began, "I know you're probably really, really tired of people saying all sorts of nice things that just seem like empty words…and you probably feel like no one could possibly understand what you're feeling right now…"_

_Ada turned to look up at Bulma, her eyes hollow and watery. Noting the response, however small, as a good sign, Bulma continued._

"_I'm worried about you, girl. And of course I don't expect you to suddenly feel better, or be social, or be able to put up with your mom right now…I just want you to know that I love you," she sighed. "So, so much. And so did your brother." Bulma noticed that Ada was starting to cry very quietly, and her heart broke for the girl. No person, she fumed to herself, let alone a child, should have to lose someone so important to them. How would a thirteen-year old girl know how to deal with that kind of pain?_

_Bulma slowly put her arm around Ada, who, to her surprise, began sobbing inconsolably. She pulled the girl to her, brushing Ada's hair with one hand, and the child laid her head in Bulma's lap._

_Feeling a veil of tears coat her own eyes, Bulma held Ada tightly, saying, "Eventually, things are going to be alright again. It's just hard right now…I wish I could take it all away, but…sometimes, life just…deals you a really shitty hand. Sometimes…things fall apart."_

**xxx**

"This…this is really…amazing," Trunks stammered, leafing through the papers in his lap. "I mean, seriously, Ada."

"Don't make fun," she responded, not even glancing up from the book she was reading.

"I'm not!" he cried. "It's really incredible; it's professional-caliber stuff. I just can't believe I didn't know that you wrote."

She looked over at him shyly, tucking some hair behind her right ear and allowing a pinch of blush to paint her face. "A little bit every night before bed…or almost every night, at least…since I was a kid. I've got boxes under my bed of nothing but half-finished stories."

"So why haven't I read any of your writing before?" he inquired, shifting his weight away from his wounded leg.

"I don't like to talk about it, I guess. Besides, Mom's always said it's a waste because it's impractical in terms of real-life career skills. You know how she rather favors the sciences," Ada smirked, glancing around Trunks' room at the various disassembled machine parts, computer innards, and half-finished blueprints.

"I guess I can't fault her for that," he returned with a sheepish grin, himself surveying the scraps that cluttered his dresser and shelves.

Ada suddenly hardened her eyes and turned her intent gaze upon him. "Listen…this is going to sound terribly childish, but I've never let anyone read my scribbles before…probably wouldn't even have let you if you hadn't brow-beaten me into it…"

"I'm glad I did," Trunks interrupted with a smile, putting down one sheaf of paper and pulling another from the worn leather portfolio that he had thieved from Ada only a half hour before.

"…right, whatever…just don't say anything to anyone, alright? It's kind of embarrassing."

"What's embarrassing about it?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"I suppose…my mother's kind of right, you know? It's impractical. Besides, I'm almost twenty years old, Trunks. I'm supposed to be doing…" she grimaced and put on a mocking tone, "…grown-up things...not writing fairytales." Ada shook her head and turned her eyes back to her book.

"If you really think writing is so useless, then you must think sketching out blueprints for things that will never be built is even more so."

"No!" she blurted out. "I mean, if it's something you like to do, then what's it matter?"

"Exactly," Trunks stated simply, smirking as he leaned against the headboard of his bed and began reading another of Ada's stories. She opened her mouth in reply but, feeling soundly beaten, closed it again and rolled over onto her stomach, resuming her own reading.

As Trunks started delving into a longer piece about an old man who started seeing strange figures in the lake near his house, his mind wandered to the girl lying at the foot of his bed. Ada had been helping with the clean-up in West City for the past three days, rising at six in the morning and finishing the day's work at nightfall. She would arrive at the Brief home terribly sweaty and covered in dirt, her hair sticking up in every direction and more than a few scrapes and bruises about her legs. Doing such work was no easy task when it meant having to suppress one's strength enormously so as not to attract extra attention, and the girl had climbed into Bulma's shower each evening absolutely exhausted. Thrice now had she sat on Trunks' bed for hours and talked, read, napped, or merely sat about enjoying a moment's peace. Naturally, he had asked her more than once why she wasn't simply going home to get a bit of rest for the next day's trials. Ada quickly threw up her defenses and explained that Trunks had been near death only days before and deserved to have someone give him company (or at least, she smirked, pity him) while he was still being forcibly bedbound by his mother.

Not that he minded, of course. Rather, Trunks felt that he had been on a permanent high for the last several days and was contemplating faking a prolonged injury even after he healed.

"I was thinking about the androids," Ada said suddenly.

"What?" Trunks blinked. "Where did that come from?"

"Nowhere, really. I've just been mulling that last incident over, and I think I've got an idea."

"Oh yeah?" he asked, part of him genuinely curious, part of him angry that the monsters had such a complete hold on their existence as to infiltrate every conversation.

"Neither of us is strong enough to beat them head-on, obviously, at least not now. Sheer strength doesn't necessarily designate the victor, though. What if we found…" she struggled with the right words, "…some way…to trick them? To outsmart them, maybe?"

"How would you propose we do that?"

"Don't you think that there has to be some way to suppress your _ki _enough to get within blast range of them without their noticing? And couldn't you…couldn't you just–"

"Just what? Find some way to shoot a _ki_ blast that would go undetected long enough to actually hit one of them?"

Ada sighed. "I don't know…it's just wishful thinking, really…but I can't help but feel like we can do this without the help of my father or Vegeta or anyone else from the past. It seems like we're throwing in the towel, doesn't it? Like we're admitting we aren't good enough to finish the job on our own…"

"Ada," Trunks replied incredulously, "how can you talk like that? And you're always on my case about pride…Does it really matter how we destroy them as long as they're gone?"

"Yes," she frowned. "If your mother had the ability to knock up a time machine all along, then how many thousands of lives were wasted while we dawdled and tried to convince ourselves that if we trained just a little bit harder our luck would turn around? How many people might have been saved years ago?"

"Is it really going to help thinking that way now?" he said, trying to fold his arms before wincing and gingerly fingering the bandaged one.

"I know," she sighed, "but sometimes…it's just hard to keep those thoughts out of your head."

"Yeah, it is," Trunks nodded, looking sympathetically at the girl lying across the width of his bed. "So why not think of something cheerier? How about…" He searched his thoughts quickly, looking for any change of subject that would bring a smile back to Ada's face. "How about this…what's life going to be like if we destroy them? If I actually find out something useful about the androids when I go back to the past?"

"'When'," Ada corrected, the slightest grin dancing about her lips.

"Huh?"

"'When' you find out something useful. 'When' we destroy them," she said.

"Son Ada, the Amazing Incurable Optimist," he mocked with a smirk.

_Only when you need me to be strong for you_, she thought.

"So then, when this pesky android problem is done with, what will life be like?" Ada asked herself as she rested her chin atop the now-closed book lying in front of her on the bed. "Well, I suppose we'll have normal lives and do everyday things…have jobs, go out for drinks with our friends on Friday nights."

Trunks detected a slight twitch in Ada's lip as she said these things, a movement like there was a nasty taste in her mouth but she wanted no one to know. "Real jobs…like people used to have…" Trunks mused, folding his hands behind his head. "If you could pick any job, what would it be?"

"I suppose," Ada blushed, "I would write…if I could…if people wanted to read it. And I would help put things back together as much as I could. And you?"

"I would get my mom's company back on its feet," he replied immediately. "Just think about it! Capsule Corp. used to be one of the top home manufacturers in the world, and that's what people are going to need when this is all over. And besides – I would get to spend my time in a real lab with the right tools to make things happen."

Rarely had Ada heard Trunks speak so passionately about anything. His two great loves seemed to be training and technology, but the former had overtaken the latter so as to make it almost obsolete to him.

"I think," she smiled, "that that sounds wonderful."

"Do you think you'll come to live in the city when it's more than just rubble? When it's thriving again?"

The question caught Ada off guard. She considered for a moment before setting her eyes on him. "No. The capital is wonderful, really; I'm sure that restoring its loveliness will make it even more so. But I don't think that I could live here. I would miss the air, and the mountains. Out there," she breathed, "one has no constraints. You can sprint through the forest, or skim across the tops of the trees…and there's no one there to question you, to think it strange. The feeling is just…liberating."

Trunks pictured the eastern forests older than humanity itself and then imagined, in the shade of one of the trees, Ada napping, strands of hair dashing playfully about her face.

"You know," Trunks admitted, "I think it sounds nice, being out there. I think I could live there, even, and enjoy it." He then closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander speculatively across the future and did not stir from the daydream for some fifteen minutes.

When he again opened his eyes, Trunks found that his exhausted sparring partner had drifted off to sleep at the foot of his bed. The young man smiled as he watched her stir slightly, then settle her head into a more comfortable position atop her folded arms. Trunks reached his hand across the bed with the intention of waking her softly – he grudgingly assumed that she ought to be getting home to a more comfortable bed – when he froze. Ada shifted again, the movement this time drawing her tee shirt up no more than an inch from her waist but still revealing a ribbon of porcelain skin. Trunks saw, peeking out from below the hemline of Ada's shirt, an irregular, henna-like stain that, tint aside, resembled a patch of skin after a burn.

Like Trunks, Ada had been born with a tail. Like his mother, Ada's had made the decision to have it removed for the safety of the general population. The two half-Saiyans were left with very similar marks in the center of their lower backs, scars that would never heal, two final, permanent – albeit almost insignificant – handprints of an eradicated race.

Trunks wondered how long ago it had been that the young Ada had decided never to show her bare back for fear of being considered different from other children. Had she been seven years old? Eight, maybe? Had she even worn a swimsuit in public since then? She had been hiding it obstinately for years. Someday, Trunks knew, someone would see it again. A future boyfriend, perhaps (the boy frowned for a reason he did not want to comprehend), would be taking in her lovely, fair skin and notice the roundish brand on her back. What excuse would she make up? What lie would she feed the man to keep his curiosity in check? The unknown man would suspect nothing unordinary about Ada until she accidentally lost control of her strength and shattered a mug or broke a doorknob. Then, she would tell him that the object in question was defective. It would keep happening until one day Ada would be forced to reveal herself, and, whether her lover accepted her or not, would still find no relief because no mere human could truly understand her.

Trunks blinked and realized he was gritting his teeth and grasping his comforter angrily. The story, however ridiculous it might seem to someone on the outside, would be the reality of Ada's situation – as well as his own. It upset him terribly that, if they defeated the androids, he and Ada would begin their lives anew as ordinary citizens, would dilute the warrior blood in their veins out of necessity, would '_settle down'_. He gulped and exhaled. He needed to wake Ada. Letting his mind wander was, apparently, both dangerous and disheartening.

**xxx**

Only twenty minutes later, Ada, despite her yawns, was saying her goodbyes for the evening and preparing to fly east. Bulma had nearly finished hugging the girl and telling her, as she had done every day that week, to give Chi Chi her best, when an urgent rap resounded on the basement door.

Bulma and Ada stiffened, looked at each other, and then waited for another knock. It came. Bulma cleared her throat and, silently praying that the androids would not bother knocking, said loudly, "Who is it?"

"It's me!" came a muffled voice from the ground level. Bulma rolled her eyes in irritation.

"Am I supposed to know who 'me' is?" she muttered before again raising her voice. "Who?"

"Louisa! I'm here to see Trunks!"

Bulma's face contorted in confusion. She looked at Ada, who was unabashedly grimacing. "Wait, that girl who Trunks was going out with? I haven't seen her in weeks…"

"Can I come in?" called Louisa from above.

"Not a very patient one, is she?" Bulma whispered. She then called out, "Go ahead," and in mere seconds the tiny blonde, clad in a rather revealing pair of shorts, was bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Hi, Ms. Brief! How have you been?" she asked brightly, squeezing Bulma to her in a tight hug as the older woman, apparently unaware that their relationship had progressed to a physical level, left her arms hanging limply on either side of her.

"I've been…alright, I guess," she replied after being released. "It's…nice to see you, Louisa. You haven't been around in a while."

"Oh, I know! After that android attack last week, my dad said I couldn't go out, plus I just kind of got busy and couldn't find a time to drop i–" Louisa fluttered her eyes a bit as she noticed the other party in the room. "Why, hello! You seem to be here every time I am!" she giggled.

"Well…I guess I tend to come here pretty often…" Ada replied, wondering what it was about Louisa that drained people of the ability to hold intelligent conversation. Before the raven-haired young woman could finish, Louisa appeared to have lost interest. She looked around the room intrudingly.

"I suppose you know why I'm here," she bubbled. "Where's my Trunks?"

"He's…in his room…down the hallway," said Bulma after she tossed a fleeting glance at Ada, who was chewing on her lower lip in general irritation.

"Thank you so, so much!" Louisa chirped in reply and then frolicked down the hallway and through the door of the injured man's room.

Somewhere between overhearing a few squeals, an _I missed you so, so, so much!_ and an _Oh _no_! You're hurt!_, Ada decided that she needed to leave for home. As fast as possible.

"Well," she said weakly, "see you soon." With that, Ada was gone, but not before catching one last high-pitched squeak from the home below: "Don't you worry, Trunks! _I'm_ here now, and _I_ won't leave you in here all alone!"

**xxx**

**Postscript**: I got four reviews last chapter! Happiness abounds, folks. I wish I could adequately describe how cheery your reviews make me. I hope the story continues to inspire you to write them. A few things: the first poem quoted at the beginning is also piece from which the title of Chinua Achebe's famous novel _Things Fall Apart_ is drawn. I certainly recommend reading it if you haven't. The second poem quoted is long but absolutely worth finding on the internet and reading in its completeness. If you like it, then read the rest of Robinson's stuff. He's fantastic, and this poem in particular is really very moving. So that's enough pushing of my literary preferences on you. I'm beginning to sound like the fic authors that use their stories to gush about their favorite bands and all of the awesome songs they write…Anyway, as always, thank you for your loyalty!


	12. Stars and the Moon

CHAPTER 11

"I just can't believe you were injured all this time and I didn't even _know_ about it! I should have come sooner!" Louisa gushed petty sentiments at an alarming speed while simultaneously pretending to inspect Trunks' face and arms for wounds. The young man merely sat atop his bed, dumbfounded at the turn of events that had taken place in the last three minutes. His first instinct was to jump up, dart out of his home, and fly after Ada, to whom he imagined he would elegantly deliver some very apologetic and heroic dialogue.

Of course, he was yet unable to walk, which made all of that rather difficult.

Instead, Trunks fumbled to come up with some way to get Louisa away from him without hurting her feelings. He had all but forgotten about the chirpy girl, assuming that her fickleness had led her to pursue someone else. So surprised was he to see her now doting over him that he was not even peeved at the phoniness of her concern.

Trunks listened to Louisa give a very vivid, very detailed account of the androids' destructive rampage several days ago and how her best friend's home had _almost _been hit, but she got so, _sooo_ lucky, and the cute guy from across the street had even come over to make sure said friend was alright, and it was _sooo_ romantic! After nearly a half hour of the story, Trunks felt his eyelids begin to droop. He blinked and looked over at Louisa (who was now talking delightedly about her father's new pastry recipe).

_There's got to be a way to end this._

He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, opened his mouth, and then decided that he really ought to think about his words before speaking so candidly to her. Thus, the warrior ended up spending almost another hour nodding and smiling as Louisa continued her tale, all the while coming up with and scrapping ideas in his head. Sure, the girl was almost intolerably annoying to most people, but Trunks could not help but see some good qualities in her, qualities that would certainly be just right for, well…someone. Louisa was beautiful, positive, and, despite a few unintentionally rude remarks now and again, generally good with people. Trunks could not stand her and wanted to bid her happy trails as quickly as possible, but he did not want to hurt her. He had, after all, started the whole thing when he had asked her out.

"…but that's about all the news I have," Louisa flashed Trunks a brilliant smile. "What about you, sweetie? How did you get in this condition?"

"Uh…bad break, I guess," he responded sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. "Listen, Louisa…thanks a lot for coming to visit me…really nice of you…" _Stop stalling, dammit!_ "I was hoping that, while you're here, we could maybe…we could talk."

"Sure, but what do you want to talk about?" she asked quizzically.

"Well," he sighed and motioned awkwardly between the two of them. "About…about this…us…"

"Really? About us?" It took somewhere around a millisecond for Louisa's expression to go from innocent inquiry to cunning excitement. "Trunks, is it that you're ready to get more serious? I gotta admit that I thought you'd be the type of guy who wanted to take things really slowly and all…but I'm not complaining!" She drew herself a bit closer to him and laid a hand on his thigh. "We should probably wait until you're all healed up, but–"

"That's definitely not what I had in mind!" Trunks replied in shock after having drawn himself as far up against his headboard and away from Louisa as possible.

"Oh," she said simply, the confused look coming back into her eyes. "Then what did you want to talk about?"

"Louisa," he began, considerably less afraid of her than he had been several seconds before, "you're…you're really great…and nice…and pretty…but I–" Trunks stopped short, assessing the situation and deciding upon a route to take while simultaneously still recovering his bearings after her previous comments. "I don't think that we're right for each other."

"What do you mean?" She looked as though she understood perfectly well and was vaguely hurt.

"We're just…we're really different, which isn't bad or anything, I just think that you would get a lot more enjoyment out of a guy who was more…compatible…with you, you know?"

Louisa seemed to be mulling the idea over. Trunks continued, "There are plenty of great guys out there who would be really, really happy to get a chance with you, and I have a feeling they would be more fun that I am."

"I guess you might be right," she conceded thoughtfully. "I really do like you…but there _are_ lots of other guys who've asked me out…"

Trunks just stared at her, a little surprised at her agreeing with him and desperately praying that the behavior would continue.

"But…I wouldn't want you to be upset about not having me around…" Louisa mentioned.

"No need to worry about that – I've got a lot going on right now," he returned, visions of time travel and android battles flashing through his mind. _That's an understatement_. Trunks suddenly felt terribly ashamed that he was sitting in his room, breaking things off with some girl for whom he had no feelings – doing things, he reasoned, that a person his age normally would – when he was supposed to be training to save the world. The idea of involvement with a girl seemed frivolous, almost ridiculous, and pangs of guilt began to darken his thoughts.

"If you're sure…" Louisa hesitated. Trunks gave her a simple smile and nod, and she grinned back at him, clapping her hands happily. "Well, that settles it, then! Trunks, you're such a sweetheart, you know? I've never had a guy breakup with me before – I've always been the one to end things – and I've always heard that it's just terrible and painful and heart-breaking, but I've really had a nice time tonight! You talked more than you ever have before! You're not really a chatty guy, I guess. Maybe you can find a nice girl who doesn't like to talk, either!"

Her sentiment, although a little ridiculous, was so genuine at this point that Trunks could not help but smile as she hugged him and then, eyes wide, reclaimed her previous seat. "I didn't want to make you jealous before, but now I suppose it's alright to tell you…this really, really cute guy from the bakery asked me to have coffee with him! Let me start from the beginning. So, I was really bored the other day, and…"

Trunks, blissfully unaware of anything that Louisa was saying, leaned back against his headboard.

_I guess I don't have to bother with all of that 'let's still be friends' nonsense._

**xxx**

Ada did not return to Capsule Corporation the following evening, and Trunks wasn't surprised. He didn't blame her, he thought with a frown. She had only been coming around after her clean-up work to keep him company, and he'd hardly shown his gratitude. But having her there with him, having her around to talk to, to sit with, (to look at, he admitted to himself with a blush), had turned a humiliating defeat into one of the best weeks he'd had in months.

Trunks had spent the entire day thinking similar thoughts, all of which he used to will himself to get up and struggle on after he had fallen again, and again, and again. He had, after all, spent the entire day teaching himself how to walk again. Much to the chagrin of his mother ("I don't care if you _are_ a Saiyan, those _enormous gashes_ all over your body will be happy to split back open and give you some terrible infection _anyway_! Sometimes you can be almost as pig-headed as your father was…"), Trunks had been trolling the floors of his basement home, bracing himself against the walls and limping.

Many hours and several painful falls onto his injured arm and leg later, the boy was walking without any help and a limp about half as severe as the one he had begun with. After making one last journey around the house for good measure, Trunks showered and got dressed. He shoveled down a meal and, just as the sun was beginning to set, pulled on a light jacket and headed for the door.

"Going somewhere?" Bulma asked.

"Yep. Be back later. Love you, Mom!" he called as he struggled up the stairs and out of the door.

"I don't suppose you were planning on telling me where!" Bulma shouted after him and then huffed, rolled her eyes, and set about repairing the tuning dial on the radio.

**xxx**

The flight took more energy than Trunks would have liked, but it could hardly be helped in his current state. Driving would have taken twice as long, after all, and time was always a factor when journeying as far as the Eastern Mountains.

Night had fallen when he landed in front of the Son home, a night so pervaded by the light of the full moon that it bore more resemblance to dawn. Trunks approached the front door and raised his fist to knock.

He paused. He had no idea what he would say when Ada asked why he was there, how he would explain the incident with Louisa…he was woefully unprepared. Trunks was standing on the doorstep of Ada's home, desperately wanting to see her, and yet he could not quite explain any of the things that went on within him every time he spoke with, saw, or even thought about the girl in question. He was so unsure of his feelings himself, in fact, that he assumed it would be impossible to convey them to Ada.

But he had to see her. Trunks took a deep breath and unclenched his fist, alarmed at how much his hand was shaking. He was a challenger of soulless killing machines, son of the prince of an ancient warrior race, heir to what was once the largest and most powerful corporation on the planet, and yet, Trunks lamented with frustration and shame, he trembled at the prospect of revealing himself to a girl he had known almost from birth.

_This is ridiculous. Just find her, and talk to her…and things will work out_,he reasoned. _Right?_

Trunks readied himself again to knock on the door, and his fist had nearly made contact with the wood when he heard the almost inaudible singing of a woman. He looked around. It was coming from the other side of the house, he realized. Trunks' curiosity made him turn his thoughts inward so as to pinpoint the person's _ki_. It took him only a moment to realize that the voice was Ada's, not her mother's. He steeled himself and walked around the house.

Ada had evidently just pulled a load of laundry from the clothesline, and, her back to Trunks, she was setting down the wicker laundry basket and leaning up against a small building – the old home that her father had turned into a shrine to Gohan, her great-grandfather – to spend a moment taking in the lovely moon above Mount Paozu.

_Her mind must be elsewhere – her thoughts are scattered – or else she would have sensed me coming_, he thought.

The sight of Ada calmed Trunks' nerves, and he smiled as he noticed how her wet onyx hair was laced with threads of moonlight. The shape of her hips was visible beneath the cotton boxers she was wearing ("I can't help it if I happen to prefer men's underwear to other forms of pajamas, alright?"), and the accompanying long-sleeved Capsule Corporation tee-shirt seemed to suit her. She fingered a few strands of freshly-washed hair and sighed, still humming under her breath.

Trunks walked toward her, trying to make his footfalls heavy enough to alert her of his presence. Just popping up behind her and saying something…at night…in the middle of nowhere…would have been not only frightening but creepy.

She ceased humming and turned her head a little at the sound.

"Hey there," Trunks said, wishing he could have thought up a more eloquent way to announce his arrival. She stood up straight and turned to him.

"Oh…you're walking," Ada said in mild surprise.

"Yes," Trunks replied, slightly deflated at the lukewarm reception. "It took some trying, but I managed to get back on my feet. I think I can even go help at the clean-up sites tomorrow."

"That's ridiculous," she shot back. "Just because you can walk doesn't mean that you're well. Last I checked, that gash in your arm was just beginning to close, and what about your ribs?" Ada turned her piercing gaze toward him, one eyebrow raised in a combination of inquiry and mockery.

"I'm fine. It's not like I'm going to spend any more time just lying around. If it weren't for the city needing so much help right now, I would start training again."

"Also a terrible idea," Ada snipped. "But if you're so set on causing yourself more bodily harm, I think you ought to pick the training option."

"Why?" he asked incredulously. "A lot of people need help right now, and–"

"And what's going to help them more: one more volunteer piling up rubble or a hero preparing to save them all?"

His stomach shot into his throat. _She called me a hero…_ "Then why aren't you training?"

"We both know that it's you we've got to worry about preparing. The only reason I've done any training at all over the past couple weeks is to give you a hand in making some progress before you leave again," she said simply.

"It just seems so ridiculous," he laughed bitterly. "_You_ should be going to the past. You should have gone from the start. You're stronger than I am, and more collected."

"If anything, we _might_ be equally matched," Ada corrected quickly.

"But you're better at controlling your power."

"Trunks, this is what's so frustrating!" she burst out suddenly. He jumped a little in surprise. "Don't you get it? You're one of the strongest fighters in the universe! Your power is absolutely incredible, and I just know that there's more waiting to come out–"

"You can't surpass a Super Saiyan," he shook his head.

"That's just the attitude you've got to get rid of. You have everything you need, all the tools to destroy the androids. But you have to believe you can. You've got to realize that this task was made for you, and that it might seem hopeless…but fate's going to step in…I know it will…" She seemed almost angry, desperate to make him hear her.

"You have no reason to believe yourself unable or inept," Ada finished, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I mean…you're going to save the world." She gave him a tiny smile and then leaned against the side of the shrine, twisting her damp hair in her hands.

As Trunks looked at her, he felt some unknown strength surge within him, a fiery will to do whatever was necessary to ensure that he did not fail her. He determined then that he would train harder, would begin earlier each day and continue until his body absolutely could not take anymore, would become whatever it was that Ada believed he could be.

The pair stood in silence and turned their eyes to the heavens as they had done so many weeks ago outside of the dilapidated hotel in West City. The crickets sang especially loudly, chanting one last summer night's chorus before disappearing for another cold season, and Trunks felt himself being lulled into peaceful tranquility by their chirping. The feeling of determination from several minutes before came pulsating back through his veins, this time urging him to tell her what he had come to say in the first place.

"Listen," Trunks said, "I wanted to thank you for staying with me these past few days. I'm sure you were exhausted, and the last thing you had in mind was probably sitting around, trying to keep me company. You being there…was really great." Trunks couldn't fight the serene, genuine smile that came across his face at the thought of Ada lying on his bed, quietly napping atop a book.

"I didn't do anything…really…" She turned her eyes down, still twisting her wet black hair into a low ponytail beside her cheek.

"Ada," Trunks said softly, longing to tell her a million different things but afraid of her response to any one of them. He merely stood there gazing at her, drinking in the features of her face. Her porcelain skin glowed a light rosy color from the recent scrubbing of a washcloth, her cheeks shining the brightest. Ada's bowed pink lips showed slight signs of being chewed on, perhaps from anxiousness, perhaps from simple habit. Unnoticeable to anyone who was not looking for it, a scar marked the area between her right eyebrow and hairline – a memento of a particularly nasty childhood encounter with a large tyrannosaurus. It was like this, with no cover or pretense, Trunks thought, that Ada was at her most beautiful.

Suddenly, he reached over to her and, placing one hand on her shoulder, gently turned her toward him.

**xxx**

Before Ada realized what was happening, she felt Trunks' lips press against her own. Her shock was such that she did not respond at all for several seconds but simply stood there, her arms falling limply to her sides. Ada slowly fluttered her eyes shut and returned the kiss, and in place of the surprise came an incredible warmth that spread from where their mouths met out to every inch of her body. She felt Trunks' _ki_ rising as he slowly wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, his fingers spread upon her back. Ada's hands found their way to his chest and rested there momentarily before sliding up and around to the back of his neck.

As Trunks pulled away just enough to look into Ada's eyes, both of them worked to catch their breath. He felt her heart beating rapidly against his chest and began to search her feelings.

_She's scared. I should have said something before I did that…I was too eager. And now I've frightened her. _Trunks' face fell into a shadow of a frown as he worked against his own will to release her from his embrace. Before he could make himself let go, however, Ada pulled herself closer to him and lightly touched her forehead to his. She was smiling, Trunks observed with relief. Ada leaned in for another kiss, and he most willingly obliged.

This one was different; no surprise, no fear, no anxiety corrupted the sweetness of it. The kiss simply felt right, like something that had been patiently waiting in the back of each of their minds and was finally free. Ada noticed with delight that Trunks' lips were soft but firm and that each time she made contact with him, his _ki_ spiked involuntarily.

Ada smelled enchantingly warm, like lavender, and yet sweet, Trunks thought with a mental smile. It was…intoxicating. For the first time, he allowed the tugging, fluttery feeling that had frequented the pit of his stomach as of late to erupt and seize him. Trunks, after what he realized were weeks…months…perhaps years, even?...of shutting himself down when he was around Ada, let her sink into his skin. When she took her lips from his and leaned against him, nestling her head between his neck and shoulder, Trunks could feel his heart aching for the woman in his arms.

"Ada," he whispered, "I hope you know…that Louisa…I never felt anything for her."

"Oh?" she asked, a spot of fear tainting her voice. "She seems to be very fond of you…and she's a beautiful girl, no one can really deny that–"

"I was being childish when I got involved with her," Trunks interrupted, blushing as he did so. He desperately wanted to clear the air. "I was…I guess I was…"

"What?" Ada sounded somewhat hurt that Trunks had stained the first words spoken after such a wonderful kiss.

"I didn't know how to talk to you," he blurted out, desperately trying to salvage the moment in spite of his embarrassing admission. "And…I thought maybe Louisa would get you off my mind…" Trunks stopped short. "I sound ridiculous, don't I?"

"A little," she admitted, pulling her head from his shoulder and giving him a small smile. "But at least you're honest."

"ADA! Are you still out here?" The familiar piercing voice of Son Chi Chi came ringing from around the front side of the house.

Ada rubbed the bridge of her nose and looked apologetically at Trunks before calling back to her mother, "Yes! I'm coming!"

"I just don't want you to complain about being tired when you get up tomorrow!" harped the woman. The sound of the door shutting scared off the only nearby birds that hadn't flown away as quickly as possible after Chi Chi's first shout.

"In a normal world, we would be considered adults by now," Ada mused with a smirk. "But instead, we get to stay at home for the rest of our lives because there are rampaging, evil androids on the loose. Somehow, that logic just doesn't seem to follow.

Trunks chuckled lightly and sighed. "At least I can't feel bad about being the only one who ruined the moment." He blushed and put his hands in his pockets. "I guess I ought to go so you don't get in trouble for not making your bedtime."

"Oh, stop it," she responded to playful mockery in his voice. "Fly safely, alright?"

"For you, I will," he smiled before pulling her back to him again for another blissful kiss. Trunks kissed the top of her head and then levitated a few feet off the ground. Ada looked up at him, smiling like a young girl who's just gotten a Valentine from one of the boys in her class.

"Goodnight," he whispered.

"'Night," Ada replied, waving as he took flight and disappeared into the night sky.

**xxx**

**Postscript**: I wrote the scene for the kiss about a month ago…and then I scrapped it when I finally got to this chapter. I redid the entire thing from scratch, and I must admit that I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I can only hope that you are, too! Please, please review and let me know what you think of their big moment; I'm dying to know whether you liked it or not. As always, I'm exponentially (I need to start coming up with new adverbs to use here, because the one's I've been picking just don't convey my thanks enough) grateful to you for your readership and your reviews.

**Post-postscript**: In case you were wondering (doubtful, but who knows?) about the title for this chapter, it's actually from a song. I've decided to quit posting lyrics at the tops of chapters because it seems a little cliché (and says you aren't supposed to, but…yeah), but if you're curious, check out "Stars and the Moon" from _Songs for a New World_ by Jason Robert Brown. Good stuff.


	13. Close To His Heart

CHAPTER 12

Ada did not sleep that night. Instead, after collapsing onto her bed, bearing an immense smile stretching from one ear to the other, she lay awake, turning from side to side for several hours. She gazed out her window at the moon and even let a giggle escape her lips once or twice. After several hours of tossing about, Ada got out of bed, grabbed some leftover casserole from the refrigerator, and set to work with pen and paper at the small desk in her room. She wrote without pause for most of the night, completing her new story shortly after four a.m. Still possessing an uncanny amount of energy, Ada made herself breakfast and ate it atop the roof of her Grandpa Gohan's shrine. She could not remember the last time she had stopped to take in the sunrise over the mountains. The girl mentally chided herself for not always appreciating that she lived in one of the most astoundingly beautiful places in the world.

The ensuing twelve-hour workday presented a problem, as Ada, by noon, had fallen asleep on a rooftop she was helping to mend only to be promptly awoken by a fellow volunteer. The sun was relentless in spite of the coming change of season, and between the heat and her exhaustion, all of the otherworldly happiness of the night before crumbled into a grumpy disquietude that launched Ada into an anxious, agitated conversation of the mind.

As Ada continued to drive nails into two-by-fours and then into shingles, progressing slowly from one end of the roof to the other, her head swam with troubling thoughts. Trunks had shown up at her house so suddenly, his reason apparently being to sweep Ada off her feet. She had let him. She had been so angry only twenty-four hours before their encounter, yet she had let him. And she had loved it. Ada frowned, unwarranted shame clouding her perception. She was the strong, independent one, the reliable, mature-beyond-her-age bookworm, the warrior; such had been Ada's self-defining mode of thought for years. Letting some…some _boy_…materialize out of thin air and wrap his arms about her waist, letting him kiss her…somehow seemed to weaken that image. It made her no better, she began to fear, than girls like Louisa.

Her cheeks grew rosy as she considered that the kiss with Trunks had been her first with anyone, and that, despite her nineteen years, she knew nothing of romance. As a young girl, she had asked her mother about boys from time to time out of simple curiosity, and she always got the same response: "Sweetie, your father and I fell in love the moment we saw each other. Sure, we were just kids…but I knew. And the next time I saw him, I married him! All of this 'dating' business that everyone talks about these days seems like a waste of time. You're either willing to spend the rest of your life with a person or you aren't. I hardly think that a year of going out to dinner with someone can help you make that decision…"

Ada rolled her eyes and shuddered at the prospect of having a similar conversation with her mother again. The only other source of her relationship knowledge came from the self-proclaimed goddess of love, Ms. Bulma Brief, and Ada felt justifiably skeptical of the inventor. _Ideal relationships don't usually include letting an evil, horny alien prince screw you and subsequently father a child with whom he wants no association_, Ada mused as she pried the top from a crate full of roofing tiles.

So what, then, was Ada to do? How was she to act around Trunks? Perhaps, she thought, the bottom falling out of her stomach, he had only acted romantically toward her because he had broken up with Louisa and needed someone to fill the gap for a while. She pondered what else someone like Trunks could possibly want with a girl like her.

Her thinking was not intentionally negative or demonstrative of low self-esteem; Ada knew herself to be a prize for the guy who finally showed that he could handle her. Yet, Trunks was…well…_Trunks_. He was very nearly the strongest person in the universe with an unusual and exceptional talent in swordplay. With severe features balanced against soft coloring, he was remarkably handsome. The man had the brains of an engineering genius and the heart of lion. Despite all of these things, traits that, Ada imagined, would make anyone cocky (and rightfully so), Trunks was gentle, earnest, caring, selfless, and, as an added bonus, perhaps as psychologically damaged as Ada.

"Hey, Miss Goo Goo Eyes!"

"Huh?" Ada snapped her head toward the source of the noise, the smile on her face fading into confusion.

"I asked if you could hand me those towels," said a large middle-aged man working several feet away from her.

"Oh," she replied, grabbing a bucket beside her and passing it his way. "Sure thing." He nodded in thanks and chuckled at little, presumably at Ada. Ignoring him, she wiped the sweat from her brow and began another row of shingles.

There was always the possibility, Ada realized, that Trunks' intentions had been perfectly pure. Perhaps he had broken things off with Louisa not only because she annoyed him but because he wanted to be with Ada. Maybe the kiss hadn't been a meaningless display of affection. Maybe Trunks truly had feelings for her but had not known how to properly express them. If that were the case (_Even though it almost certainly is _not, Ada reminded herself.), then what did the events of the evening before really mean? Did he want there to be something between them? Something real, something solid? Ada wondered gloomily if, considering their circumstances, any kind of relationship would even be a possibility.

**xxx**

Trunks had been throwing punches around in an old Capsule Corporation warehouse for nearly eleven hours, yet he was still unable to clear his mind. He knew that Ada would suggest meditating to focus his thoughts, but that was just the problem: Ada. She was, undoubtedly, working away somewhere in the city, toting loads of destroyed brick around or constructing underground shelter homes, probably without giving him a moment's thought. Still in slight shock at his own gumption, Trunks continuously replayed in his mind the previous night. He had actually done it; he had kissed her, had emptied himself of some of the insanity that had been building up within, had shown her how much she meant to him.

After returning home, he had stayed up all night just thinking about it, too content with reality to allow his dreams to take its place. Not until he started training that morning had Trunks begun to doubt himself. Perhaps, he thought, his mind was simply tired from lack of sleep and his healing injuries. There was, however, the possibility that the darker thoughts that were now plaguing him contained some truth that needed to be considered. He had, he grudgingly admitted to himself now, given Ada no warning before kissing her. Trunks hadn't run the back of his hand delicately along her face or whispered sweet nothings into her ear. If he had allowed her the time to think about what was happening, would she have still returned the kiss? Trunks wondered if he had cheapened the moment by not giving her the time to truly consider her feelings.

The young warrior fell into a pattern of block-punch-block-punch and tried to repeat it as quickly as possible while still fretting over Ada. She had kissed him back, Trunks thought, and willingly, so there was certainly a chance of her actions toward him being genuine. Maybe she really did feel something for him. _So what then?_ he mused. _Where do we go from here?_ Despite his past endeavors in the dating world, Trunks knew that he was about as schooled in the art of romancing a beautiful woman as he had been at the age of twelve.

He stopped suddenly, grimacing at what he considered his own growing weakness. He was supposed to be training to defeat the androids, a task that would take nothing less than his absolute devotion, and yet his mind could not have been farther away. If Trunks wished to make any progress before his muscles began screaming at him to quit for the night, he would have to try focusing his energy again. The young Saiyan stood perfectly still, letting the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead drip onto his eyelids. He peered into his _ki_ and realized very quickly that the source of his troubles was approaching him in the flesh. She was close, perhaps making her way into the warehouse.

Upon hearing the echoing sound of a door closing nearby, Trunks knew that he was right.

**xxx**

"What are you doing? How do you plan on making any progress training in an environment that offers no obstacles?" _Would it kill you to be nice for once? The guy's going to run away if you can't stop being such a bitch._ Ada walked through the warehouse door and stopped near the center of the room, smirking and folding her arms, hoping against all odds that Trunks would think she had already forgotten about the kiss.

"Well," he responded, tongue-tied and rather embarrassed at how right Ada was, "I didn't really have any other options. And I've already had some trouble with my wounds today as it is; any outside pressure probably would have been too much."

"What kind of trouble?" Ada inquired, concern becoming evident in her face despite her efforts against it. "Did they reopen? Have you checked your bandages in a while?" She approached him, gently took hold of his injured arm, and motioned for him to sit down on the floor with her. Trunks did so, allowing her to examine the slowly-healing mess while trying to keep his _ki_ from exploding at her touch.

"The bandages might be destroyed," she concluded after picking at the gauze, "but your arm is actually doing okay."

Smiling at Ada's evident relief, Trunks said, "It's not like I was able to do anything too intense today, anyway. I haven't been able to focus."

"Oh?" She let go of his arm after quickly rewrapping his wound in what remained of the bandage. "Why's that?"

Trunks gulped and stared blankly at her, clearly unsure of how to respond. Ada looked back at him, a little tickled at his disorientation. He wasn't at all the quiet, sure, confident fighter that she was used to; instead, he seemed distracted, perhaps even worried. It pained Ada to think that she just might be the cause of such a change.

"I was thinking," she blurted out, more to fill the silence than anything, "that I might train with you again. To help you, I mean. There are quite a few people at the volunteer sites, and it's not as though I'm making much of a difference…and even if I were…they'll be back soon enough, to destroy more, to kill more…I feel useless out there. But if I were helping you, then–"

"That would be great!" he exclaimed with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Ada laughed a little.

"If you're sure –"

"Of course."

"Let me finish," Ada chided, frowning as she fought to force the next sentence from her mouth. "What I wanted to say was, 'If you're sure I won't be a distraction'."

"What do you mean?" Trunks asked, moving closer to her but clearly trying to pass it off as a series of minor stretches. Ada was not fooled. She decided to save him the trouble and leaned over, giving her weight almost entirely to the arm beside Trunks and touching her shoulder to his. He flinched slightly in surprise.

"I mean," she sighed, "that you need to concentrate on your training. And I don't want you to get sidetracked by…by whatever is happening…" Ada used her hand to gesture awkwardly between Trunks and herself, flushing as she did so. She felt exceedingly childish at her inarticulateness when it came to the man sitting beside her.

"It's worse," Trunks replied, his own cheeks reddening, "when you aren't around."

"That's really very sweet of you, but…today, I got to thinking that maybe I made a mistake by…by letting you kiss me…" Ada's voice shook from nerves. She wanted nothing more than to lean over and kiss him again, this time until her lips were tired and swollen, and yet she was struggling with whether or not to end everything that was just beginning to blossom. "Like I already said, I might only be a distraction…and neither of us really has the effort to put into…into this…"

"Ada," Trunks said calmly, stopping her flustered babble. "What is it that you're so afraid of?"

"Hm?" she blinked, completely unprepared for the question. "What am I…what?"

"I know that you don't really believe anything you just said to me," he explained. "So why are you trying to run all of a sudden? What are you so afraid of?"

"I…I'm not…" She trailed off, mouth open and eyes vacant but troubled. After brushing several strands of hair behind her left ear, Ada shifted uncomfortably and pulled her knees to her chest. The couple sat in silence for a few moments, neither looking at the other.

"I won't leave."

Ada snapped her gaze to Trunks and narrowed her eyes. She was on the defensive, and he seemed to be rather frightened by it.

"You're leaving in a year!" Ada shot at Trunks, pretending to have misunderstood his meaning completely.

"And then I'll come back," he pleaded. She looked at him skeptically. He quickly corrected, "I _promise_ I'll come back."

"You know you can't make that promise," she countered in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.

He frowned at her words and opened his mouth to say something several times before shutting it again, defeated. Out of ideas, Trunks simply took Ada's hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"Ada…why not just give it a chance? If you decide you don't want to be with me anymore, you can go. I won't even ask why," he said.

"I hope you realize that once you have me, you're keeping me. There won't be any opting out," she countered in a tone only half playful. Trunks smiled slyly at her, and an instant later, Ada felt his lips crush her own. The unexpected vivacity in his kiss set her entire body aflame, and she impulsively braced herself against him. Trunks clutched at her back with his tired fingers and pulled her to him until he could feel her chest heaving up and down beside him.

Ada tensed at the spark that ignited low in her stomach and burst into a feeling that was, until then, quite foreign to her: desire. She did not understand the intense want she had suddenly begun to harbor for Trunks and was terrified of its potential power. As he kissed her more deeply, the heat of the flame only grew. Trunks bit down gently on her lower lip and then eased his tongue into her mouth and began exploring it with tender passion. Ada smiled inwardly at the realization that he probably had no clue what he was doing in spite of the seeming finesse with which he handled their embrace. It didn't matter. To Ada, it was perfect.

She briefly registered a noise from somewhere in the distance – perhaps a car whizzing past the complex – but ignored it for fear of pulling away from the kiss. She soon realized her mistake.

"Hey, Trunks!" a familiar voice called from the other side of the warehouse. "Dinner's rea–"

A moment's silence. Trunks snapped his head away from Ada and toward the source of the noise. Bulma Brief was standing there in open-mouthed speechlessness.

**xxx**

**Postscript**: I've got a bit of housekeeping business to mention. First of all, I'll be leaving for school again in just a few days (I know everyone asks this, but, seriously, where did summer go?) and am going to be quite busy until then. Once I'm at school, I'll be ridiculously busy. Thus, my updates will become much, much more sparse. Do not lose faith in me, however, for I will still be updating. You may not see another chapter for an entire month, but I promise that I won't abandon this story. I've come too far, and I love it entirely too much. In the meantime, please keep the reviews coming! I'll probably be rather slow in responding to those, too, but I'll still get back to you on them because I absolutely adore reading them. Other than that I wanted to give you an idea of what's coming next for our heroes. I won't be writing the rest of the three-year gap in as much detail as I've been writing; entire blocks of months will probably be skipped when it gets to that point. I'll still write about a few key things that happen within that timeframe, though, and will get back to more detail when Trunks heads back to the past. I think that's all…goodness, I should _hope_ that's all. As always, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support!

Ah yes, and I've gotten over 1,000 hits, which is far above my expectations when I set out on this project. To celebrate, I offer you this slightly altered fan favorite:

"Vegeta, what does the Story Traffic page say about the hit count?"

"_IT'S OVER ONE THOUSAND!!!_"

Somehow, I'll never get tired of that joke.


	14. Things To Talk About

CHAPTER 13

Bulma stood there for a moment, gaping at Ada and Trunks. The latter, fearing he could die of embarrassment at any moment, stood and prepared himself for some kind of explanation. Yet, he had none; there was nothing that needing explaining. Ada, on the other hand, had shrunk into a veritable pile of beet-red shame, rubbing her temples so as not to make eye contact with Bulma and shifting uncomfortably.

"Well…" the older woman began, "I suppose I'll just…go set the table…" Bulma blinked at her son (to whom no witty comments were presenting themselves) and then at Ada before turning to leave the warehouse. She barely made it out the door before exploding in girlish giggles and shouts of glee.

"I should really be going, too," Ada spouted, suddenly standing and collecting herself as best she could. "Mom probably thought I was coming straight home, and I don't want to worry her–"

"Go? But–" Trunks lightly grabbed hold of Ada's wrist. "Don't you want to stay for dinner?" She looked at him, her face twisted with embarrassment, and shook her head.

"I'm sorry…I just…we can talk tomorrow, alright?" She pulled her arm from him.

The young man continued his increasingly futile attempt to salvage the situation, mostly for the sake of his own pride. He was nearly twenty years old, he mused, and his mother's mishaps were still affecting his romantic life. "Ada, it's fine, really…I'm sure Mom understands, and–"

"That's the problem!" Ada replied, unintentionally shouting at him. "I'm sure she _more_ than understands, Trunks! I give it less than a week before she starts asking me what style of wedding dress I want!" She took several very rapid, very deep breaths and then continued. "I just…if we have a chance at something, I don't want…I don't want everyone to find out about it before we've had the opportunity to figure it out ourselves…"

"Well, one person isn't 'everyone', so we should be safe," he reassured her with a small smile. "And I guess I can…talk to her about it, if you want."

"Will you?" Ada asked him calmly, regretting her outburst. "Your mom is one thing, but _my_ mother…it would be a disaster if she found out anything."

"Then she won't. Not until you're ready. Promise," Trunks replied. He stepped toward Ada and planted a kiss on her nose.

"That tickles," she smiled and rubbed the spot where his lips had touched her skin.

"Go get some sleep. It would be a shame if I took you down easily tomorrow because you were too tired to fight," he jested before kissing her sweetly on the lips.

"I beg your pardon, but I'm fairly certain that I could polish you off with no problem no matter what the handicap," Ada affirmed.

"We'll see," Trunks finished before seeing Ada on her way and turning toward the main Capsule Corporation building. Suddenly feeling the exhaustion expected after hours of training, Trunks sighed and walked toward his home and the interrogation that would undoubtedly be awaiting him upon his arrival.

**xxx**

Trunks spooned another helping of rice into his bowl and then began eating it. The blue-haired woman sitting across the table from him merely sipped her tea in silence, traces of a grin tugging at the edges of her mouth from time to time. She had spent the last half hour looking over blueprints for the machine that had become, for all intents and purposes, her second child. Of course, her real child knew that she was simply faking concentration in a (valiant) effort to act maturely. Trunks was certainly impressed with his mother, but that made the last thirty minutes of thick silence no more settling. He glanced at her furtively and then pushed his utensils and now-empty bowl aside.

Trunks felt almost mournful that Bulma was not forcing a confrontation. He could have stood, told her goodnight, and gone to bed without speaking a word about her intrusion earlier. However, although the idea tempted him terribly, Trunks reminded himself of his promise to Ada. For all Trunks knew, his mother very well could pick up the phone, dial the Son residence, and, if the lines were working again, happily gossip away to Chi Chi about every detail of the moment into which she had stumbled that evening. He simply could not risk it. Besides, Trunks admitted inwardly, Chi Chi scared the hell out of him. He would need considerable mental preparation before having to face her.

Stepping over to the sink to wash the dishes that had been dirtied during dinner, Trunks let out a mental sigh. He turned on the faucet and waited for the water to warm for a few seconds before Bulma piped up.

"No hot water for a while. The community mains are busted, and I don't have the time right now to try to fix the old Capsule Corp. water heater," she informed him gloomily.

"That wouldn't bother me so much if I weren't going to take a shower in a minute," Trunks replied, happy to be conversing about anything other than that afternoon's encounter. He quickly scrubbed at the dishes, rinsed them, dried them, and turned to leave the kitchen.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Trunks!" Bulma spouted shrilly behind him. "I was trying to be reasonable about this and let you have the first word, but if you're just going to walk off and not say a thing about it then I'm taking some initiative!"

Trunks stopped and, grimacing, looked back at his mother from the doorway. "Listen, Mom, I know that you've probably got a million things to say on the subject, but I've got a lot on my plate right now…and it really isn't that imp–"

"Of course it's important!" she cried. "You're my son, and she's my best friend's daughter, and, well, you know!" Bulma could no longer contain her excitement. A radiant smile broke out across her face. "So you can just have a seat, young man."

**xxx**

**Postscript:** I promised that I wouldn't abandon you, and so I haven't! I know, I know; this chapter is obscenely, unbelievable short. It's all I have time for at the moment, though, and I wanted to give you a little something to tide you over until around Christmastime. That's right, folks, just a few more weeks, and I'll be free of schoolwork for a while and home for the holidays. You can expect some much longer, much more interesting updates then. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your sticking with me in spite of the sparse updates; you're truly wonderful readers. Thank you for all of your continued support!


	15. Confrontations

CHAPTER 14

Bulma folded her hands and, elbows on the table, perched her chin on top of her crossed fingers. Trunks sat in the chair across from her and tried to compose himself as best he could, but he could not deny that the gleam in his mother's eyes was more than a little disconcerting.

"Well?" she pried, clearly trying to subdue her excitement.

"Well, what?" Trunks countered sheepishly.

"Well…SAY SOMETHING! Goodness, Trunks, just tell me how on earth you two finally found each other!"

"How we…what?" he fumbled over his words a bit before letting out a sigh. "Listen, Mom, I know you're waiting for me to say something…say something…_romantic_…or, you know…something like that. But I really can't explain it that way. I mean, all of the sudden, it sort of…it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks that she was there. And that she'd been there all along."

Bulma smiled sweetly at her son. "I was afraid that you were going to go through a million Louisas before you figured it out, you know?"

"Mom, I can promise you that I haven't 'figured out' anything," he admitted, relaxing slightly. If his mother already knew about Ada and him, he reasoned that he may as well take her in as his confidante. After all, she had never misled him before. "I mean, Ada keeps trying to convince me that this isn't the time for…for whatever it is that's going on between us, and the smarter half of me knows she's right…"

"But the human half of you doesn't want to wait – because who knows when or if anything substantial will materialize later on, considering the circumstances," Bulma stated simply.

Trunks blinked a few times at his mother before finally replying. "How did you–"

"Because I've been there, kid. And the human half won out. And here you are."

The comparison Bulma was drawing was at best, eerie; at worst, horrifying. Trunks wanted to shout at his mother to stop while she was ahead, to tell her that her logic was faulty, to demonstrate that he wasn't gambling with his fate by being with Ada…if he was indeed 'with' Ada. The correct definitions of such terminology were embarrassingly foreign to him.

Realizing her son's change in demeanor, Bulma shifted the direction of the conversation. "I know that talking to me about this probably makes you uncomfortable. I mean, you _are_ a grown man now. But it's important to me…you're my son, and Ada's…well, I would say 'like my daughter,' but that would make this whole thing between you two seem a little freaky," she laughed. Trunks' face contorted in terror.

"You know, I really think I should get some sleep–"

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry – that was awkward," Bulma conceded. "What I wanted to say was that…I know Ada, and I don't expect her to be careless with your heart. So I'm warning you not to be careless with hers."

"Mom, you know that I would never–"

"Hey, I'm still talking, bud!" Bulma snapped back. "As I was saying: Just…take things slowly…be careful…you're a smart kid. Go with your gut. You'll figure it out."

While appreciative of his mother's heartfelt advice, Trunks could not keep his cheeks from growing red when he admitted to himself how childish he felt. 'Be careful.' What was that even supposed to mean? And 'going with his gut' seemed like a rather rambunctious way to handle a relationship. Wait…was it even a 'relationship'? Well, of course it was a relationship, but was it a '_relationship_'…?

"And," Bulma finished, holding up her hand as though taking an oath, "I solemnly swear that I won't pry anymore."

"And that you won't breathe a word about all this to Chi Chi," Trunks added firmly.

"Oh. But why not?"

Trunks looked at her incredulously. "You shouldn't even need to ask that question."

"True. Alright, then. Not a word," Bulma replied, sipping her cup of tea.

Trunks breathed a sigh of relief – more at having made it through the interrogation than having gotten his mother's word about keeping everything a secret – and tiredly stood from the kitchen chair. "If you've finished…"

"Yeah, yeah – go to bed," she batted him off playfully with her hand. "Get some sleep, alright?"

"Sure thing," he replied wearily as he started down the hall.

"Oh, and Trunks!" he heard her call from behind him. Rubbing his temple, he answered.

"Yeah?"

"Just a word of advice from someone who's had some real experience: a good rule of thumb for people who are new to this is to wait at least a few weeks before you make a grab at her boobs."

"Mom, a-are you _serious_?" he sputtered, that familiar look of horror again painting his features. Bulma merely winked at him.

"I'm just trying to help you out, alright?" she teased. "Now go to bed."

Trunks turned on his heel, walked into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him as quickly as possible. As he undressed, Bulma's bit of 'advice' ran through his head more times than he could count despite his wanting nothing more than for the words to disappear from his memory forever. He was a grown man, he thought, the blush on his face refusing to fade even under the chill of the shower water, and his mother was giving him unsolicited advice on proper methods of…of 'making out'. Trunks braced himself against the wall, his hands splayed out and his head hanging beneath the showerhead, water cascading down his back and through his hair.

He could not help but wonder, yet again, what he was thinking even _dabbling_ in a relationship. Of course, belittling anything connected with Ada only made him angrier with himself. It frightened Trunks that he was already mentally defending her against his own reservations and doubts, particularly after reassuring her just hours before.

Inexplicably, the next time that Trunks bothered to consider his surroundings, he was lying in bed. He had gone through the motions of showering, drying off, brushing his teeth, rifling around in his dresser for a clean pair of boxers, and slipping under his comforter, an endless stream of thoughts churning through his mind and troubling him to the point of making him completely unaware of his nighttime rituals.

Trunks managed, eventually, to sleep. He then found peace, for in his dreams, she was there.

**xxx**

"Should we loosen up a bit first?" Ada asked, quickly redoing her braid lest her hair fall about her eyes as they sparred. She was more awake than usual; she hadn't yawned, she reckoned, since she'd gotten out of bed a half hour earlier. Perhaps she was adjusting to waking up early. Perhaps she was simply…content.

_More than content_, Ada thought as she saw the first glimpses of sunlight creep through the trees. She surveyed her sparring partner and smiled.

"At least a little. It's chillier this morning, anyway. Best to get the blood pumping," he responded as he pulled his sweatshirt backwards over his head and tossed it to the dewy ground.

"I like that look on you," Ada teased, winking at him. In the privacy of her own mind, she allowed herself a more serious appreciation of Trunks, his bare arms, and his rippling muscles.

"Thanks." Trunks smiled back at her before beginning his stretches. Ada followed his lead, relishing the feeling of the tightness slowly seeping out of her body.

"Any ideas on how we should go about doing this?" she asked after a few minutes of silence. "Anything in particular you want to work on?"

"Well," Trunks considered, "I guess we can see what sorts of things come up as we spar. How about you? As far as things to work on, I mean."

"This isn't about me," she replied gently. "Remember?"

Trunks' face fell slightly, and, for the first time in days, he felt the paralyzing weight of his responsibility begin to creep across his shoulders. "Right," he affirmed at length before shrugging repeatedly in an attempt to rid himself of the invisible burden.

After stretching for a short while, Trunks folded his arms across his chest and approached his partner.

"That enough for you?"

Ada, bent backward, back arched and stomach stretched into the air, slowly lifted herself into a standing position.

"I think so," she answered simply. She paused, blinked, and stared at him for only a moment.

At which point Ada swiftly buoyed herself into the air and delivered a roundhouse kick directly to Trunks' right hipbone. His body urged him to fall to his knees, to pull itself from harm's way.

He did not. Instead, after a brief flinch, Trunks rebounded, landing a punch into Ada's stomach. Her eyes widened in shock at his quick recovery from her blow, and, the air knocked out of her, she froze. Trunks smirked triumphantly before moving to connect his foot with her neck before suddenly stopping. He blinked at Ada, now recovering after a little over a second, and felt his own stomach turn. All of the bloodlust that had begun building up inside of him disappeared in that instant, and guilt crept in to replace it

He was treating her like an opponent.

Of course, that was the point of sparring, but the knowledge that he had just caused Ada pain nauseated him. She was his–

Trunks felt his face burn as Ada employed the exact same move that he had been planning to use on her. Falling to the ground, he clutched his cheek in misery. All of his defenses had been down. Ada, operating as a true warrior ought to, had taken the opening. Trunks squeezed his eyes shut, realizing that he only needed to throw his elbow backwards to disable her. Yet, once again, he could not. He merely waited for her to strike another blow.

But she didn't.

"What are you doing?" Ada's voice demanded from directly behind him.

Trunks blinked and, recovering, stood. Still wincing, he turned to face her. "What do you mean?"

"You had a perfect opening. You could have taken me down right there. Why didn't you?" she inquired with a suspicious frown.

"I was just a little – a little shaken up. I didn't expect you to come at me that quickly," he replied.

"You're going to do this again, aren't you?" Ada sighed in frustration.

"Do what?"

"Lie about not wanting to hit a girl." It angered Trunks a little that she was trying to make the issue sound childish.

"It isn't just that–"

"But that's part of it?"

"Of course that's part of it!" Trunks said rather more loudly than he meant to.

Ada's expression softened. "Well…I suppose we're just going to have to work through that. I don't blame you for it or anything…I mean, it's sweet…" She took a step toward him, bringing them face to face. "But we should try to fix it or you won't make any progress."

"I don't suppose you've got any ideas?" he asked as Ada gently touched the spot on his cheek where her foot had landed.

"Not anything groundbreaking, no," Ada admitted, kissing the place where her hand had been a moment before. "But it might help if you mentally separated training from the rest of your life."

"How do you mean?" Heat trickled into his cheeks at the feeling of her breath on his face.

"Treat me like your opponent while we're sparring. And the rest of the time…just treat me like I'm yours."

**Author's Note:** Guess whose laptop suddenly fell ill when she was halfway done with this chapter? I know, I know; excuses abound. I really am doing my best, though, especially with school having started again. I'm sticking with this, though, so don't worry. It just might progress a bit more slowly than I had planned. That being the case, I'll probably post shorter chapters for the rest of the semester so that I can update more often. As always, your reviews and support are absolutely wonderful – they keep me going, friends! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Another thing – as I take Ada and Trunks through the next year before Trunks leaves for the future again, what would you like to see? What do you want to know about them? What seems unclear? I would love to hear anything and everything that you have to say!


	16. Something Like Normal

**CHAPTER 15**

Panting and sweating profusely, the boy lay down on the ground. He closed his eyes and, breathing as deeply as he could, tried to relax. He had been sparring for two hours without as much as a water break. As the child turned his head to the side to feel the cool grass sweep against his face, a runaway strand of black hair fell in front of his eyes. He was too exhausted to brush it away.

"Piccolo," the boy said between long breaths, "can we…take a break…for a little while?"

"Not until your mother has lunch ready," came a quick, gruff reply.

"But…but that could be another half hour–"

"Get up, Gohan. We're not finished." But the boy did not move; instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will away his exhaustion. Not until he heard an impatient, "Gohan!" from his master did he begin to sit up.

"Aren't you troubled by anything that the man from the future said?" Piccolo demanded, searching for something to inspire Gohan to continue training. "What of your own fate? And your mother's?"

"Piccolo," Gohan asked somewhat timidly, ignoring the questions, "do you ever wonder who he was? I mean…it's not that I don't trust what he said…he was nice, and he seemed worried about us…but he just came and left, and we don't know who he was or anything."

Piccolo paused and folded his arms. "I understand your doubt. But Goku trusted him almost immediately, and I have confidence in his judgment. Besides, the alternative is not training and waiting to find out. Would you rather do that?"

"No," Gohan replied, standing and stretching.

"Me either. So let's continue."

**xxx**

After showering and eating lunch, Ada pulled on a light jacket and made her way up the steps and out the door of Capsule Corporation. As had become routine over the past several weeks, she was making her way a block south to the home of one Sada Kurella. She scanned the area – so blackened and derelict that the day's sunshine did little to help – and, deeming it as safe as she could, began walking quickly and quietly down the road. Stepping sideways from time to time to avoid rubble, Ada drew near to the gray steel frame of what had once been a Capsule home, and a very nice model at that. No longer. In fact, without doing a bit of digging around within the ruins, one never would have guessed that a living thing, let alone a human being, could inhabit such a place. Of course, Mrs. Kurella did not live among the concrete slabs and sheets of rusting metal that had once been her home. Like everyone else who had survived until that point, she lived beneath it.

Hidden behind the fender of a car (the rest of which was nowhere to be seen) and a mess of defunct pipes was a wrought iron hatch. Ada crouched down beside it and knocked lightly a few times. After only a moment, someone below lifted the hatch several inches off the ground. Realizing that it was indeed the person she had been expecting, Mrs. Kurella propped up the slab of iron and beckoned Ada down with a smile.

"Lovely to see you, dear, as always," the woman said earnestly, helping Ada down the ladder. "Sunshine today? I thought I saw a glimmer of something up there."

"Oh, yes; it's lovely. And there's even a bit of a breeze. The air almost smells…fresh," Ada replied, eager to offer a bit of decent news to Mrs. Kurella. The woman was so kind, so concerned with the well-being of those around her, but aged well beyond her years. Her husband was quite the same. They both looked to be around Chi Chi's age, but Ada knew that neither could be more than thirty-five. The Kurellas, like so many others, had spent years bent on nothing but survival. Yet, though they did their best to act cheerful, Ada got the morbid sense that these forlorn people would welcome death and all her freedoms. That is, if it were only the two of them, anyway.

The Kurellas, though, had something that set them quite apart from most people. They had a five-year old daughter, Rei, whose very existence was anachronistic, almost eerie. Ada figured that she could count on one hand the number of children she had seen in the last three years. Of those, she was absolutely certain that not a single one had been planned. So it was with Rei. The Kurellas, childless until her birth, had lost every other member of both sides of their family in the course of eight years. Rei, they often said, was an unexpected blessing. As the little girl raced down the hallway, her face ripe with glee, Ada thought that she would have to agree with them.

"Mommy, where's my jacket?" she asked enthusiastically as she skidded to a stop right in front of Ada. Her mother, with forlorn contentedness, helped Rei into a windbreaker as the little girl chattered away to Ada about some astounding structure she had built out of blocks that morning. Rei then began making her way up toward the hatch, and Ada, after saying goodbye to Mrs. Kurella, followed suit.

Once above ground, Ada and Rei began making their way back toward Capsule Corporation, the child's hand securely in Ada's.

"What're we doing today?" the little girl asked as she kicked a pebble out of her path.

"Well, I thought we could read some more of the story from yesterday, and then maybe practice your handwriting a little bit. If we have time, we can even do a little bit of math. That sound okay?" Ada replied.

Rei nodded, and as Ada glanced down at the child, she thought about how more things had changed within the last year than they had in the long while since her brother's death. She had been tutoring Rei for over a month, and she had been training with Trunks since the end of the previous summer. It was now March, and things were relatively peaceful. The androids had not attacked anywhere nearby for weeks, and Ada was growing accustomed to her daily routine of training in the mornings and teaching in the afternoons. Though Chi Chi only saw her daughter in the evenings, she was pleased that Ada was enjoying herself.

Indeed, life almost felt normal – or what Ada imagined "normal" to be. She sometimes forgot that the population lived in hiding, that she was teaching a child to read and write because schools no longer existed, that in just a few months, the man she loved would be leaving for another time to fight what could end up being his final battle.

Ada blinked and pushed such thoughts from her mind. They were approaching the entrance to Capsule Corporation, and Rei needed a hand climbing over a pile of rubble. Ada helped her clear the concrete, and the two soon made their way downstairs and into the Briefs' home.

**xxx**

"Ada?" Rei asked as they settled in around the coffee table in the living room.

"Hm?" Ada was flipping through a book she had found in a closet at home. It was full of stories that her mother and Gohan had read her when she was young, and it proved fit for a career as a teaching tool. She found the page on which she and Rei had ended the day before and laid the book on the table.

"Where's Miss Bulma today?"

"Oh, she's just got some things to work on." _She's just constructing a time machine that her son will be using to travel to the past in an effort to rid an alternate dimension of the androids that are destroying the world._ "You know, she used to make all kinds of things."

"Like what?" The little girl was intrigued

"Houses, and cars, and even robots that would do whatever you asked them to," Ada replied, entertained by the amount of awe that she let filter into her voice when describing things to her pupil.

"_Anything_?"

Rei proceeded to list no less than twenty different tasks, each of which Ada assured her – if only to humor her – that robots could indeed do. It took a little while after that to get the lesson on track, but she eventually did so. Once Rei got focused on the story, Ada knew that she would not be ready for a break until she finished it. The little girl actually enjoyed learning how to sound out and read the new words that she came across, and Ada loved teaching such an interested pupil. Rei finished the story a while thereafter and then, after a quick pause, began learning how to write her new words.

In the middle of the handwriting lesson, Ada heard the door at the top of the stairs creak open. Always somewhat defensive at the sound, she tensed and turned to look at the entrance to the Brief home. Trunks, dripping in sweat and covered with dirt, emerged, and Ada found herself not only relieved but delighted to see his grimy face. Flashing Ada a tired smile, Trunks walked over to where she and Rei were sitting.

"Hi, Trunks," the little girl said without looking up from her writing exercise. She was getting quite used to the routine of her lessons, including the time of the afternoon when Trunks usually walked in.

"Hey there, Rei," he replied before bending down to give her teacher a kiss on the head.

"Good afternoon?" Ada asked, surveying him for a moment. She noted with chagrin that he seemed to add more scrapes and bruises to his collection every day.

"Yeah." And with that, he headed toward the shower. They could, of course, say very little about their lives in front of Rei. For all the child knew, Trunks spent his days working with the relief and reconstruction crews around the city.

Ada yawned and again turned her attention to Rei's lesson. She enjoyed teaching, but it made for a long day when added to getting up before sunrise to train.

"Ada?" Rei asked, putting down her pencil. Ada mentally chided herself for losing focus on the lesson; it nearly always caused Rei to lose interest, too.

"Yes?"

"Why don't you and Trunks have a little girl like my mom and daddy do?"

"What?" Ada blinked, a laughing smile slowly spreading across her face. "Why would you expect us to?"

"'Cause that's what you do when you're married," she responded matter-of-factly.

"But we're not married," Ada chuckled a little, particularly at the very 'grown-up' expression on Rei's face that was quickly turning to confusion.

"But you…kiss each other…and you're in love like in the story…" She motioned to the storybook they had been reading out of earlier. "Like the princess."

"Well, you're right," Ada responded, stifling some of her laughter. She didn't want Rei to feel as though she was being made fun of, especially when the little girl was so convinced that she was right. "We are…in love." Ada suddenly found that talking about her relationship, even to a five-year old, was somewhat challenging. Perhaps, she thought, it had something to do with the fact that the last time she had spoken openly about it to someone was when she was forced to defend it against her mother's arguments. "But people who are in love aren't always married. Some of them are, like your mom and daddy. My mom and daddy were married, too. But usually it's because two people have been in love for a while. Trunks and I are still a little bit new at this."

"Oh." Rei digested this information. "But after you've been in love for a while, you'll be married. Like the princess."

"Well…we'll see," Ada stammered. "'A while' can be different for different people. But how about we finish up these words, hm?"

**xxx**

"Thanks for taking Rei home," Ada tried to say through a yawn as she leaned her head back on the couch. She then put on a very feminine falsetto and added, "You're my hero."

"Well," Trunks replied after removing his jacket, "I have trouble saying no to you for some reason." He grinned and settled down beside her. Just as he expected, Ada immediately turned her attention to the sizeable gash on his neck.

"This one's new," she commented, brushing her thumb against the cut. It had begun to scab over, but only just. Ada leaned toward Trunks' neck and frowned.

"At least the droid missed my jugular," he chuckled. Some months before, Bulma had knocked up a few battle droids for her son to use while training alone. They hovered above the ground, moving rapidly in various directions while simultaneously firing beams of energy toward their target: Trunks. As he trained in an abandoned Capsule Corporation warehouse, there was little else to challenge the warrior in terms of gravity or terrain. Thus, each day, he increased the speed at which the drones moved and the rapidity at which they fired.

"You're hysterical," Ada replied drily. "How about taking a day off to let this heal? Right now, any sudden neck movement is going to tear it back open. And that hole in your leg is bleeding again."

"It's not a hole. Just a…scrape."

Concern written all over her face, Ada looked Trunks in the eyes. Silence.

"I love you," he said, the smallest of smiles on his lips. Ada said nothing to him in return, instead leaning in and very gently kissing his newest injury. She leaned her head on his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut.

Just three more months. If he managed to keep himself alive for three more months…well, then he would be in top shape to leave for the past again. Where the androids would be waiting.

Ada found that she could not help but cling to him when she thought about such things.

**xxx**

_**Postscript:**_ Hello again! I hope you've all been well. As you've noticed, I jumped ahead in time some months for this chapter. My plan is to focus on a few things: the three months before Trunks leaves, certain events that happened in the time I skipped (such as Chi Chi finding out about all these shenanigans), and what's happening in the past, or the other timeline (hence the scene at the beginning with Gohan and Piccolo). Hopefully, you've stuck around in spite of my absence. Your readership and reviews are absolutely wonderful!


	17. Some Gods' Experiment

"_Is it written in the stars? Are we paying for some crime?_

_Is that all that we are good for: some stretch of mortal time?_

_Or some gods' experiment in which we have no say,_

_In which we're given paradise, but only for a day?"_

_-"Written In The Stars" from _Aida

**xxx**

CHAPTER 16

"It really is kind of you to help Trunks out with his training. All of this time-traveling business seems ridiculous to me, but it's a good thing that he's not alone right now." Chi Chi sighed and deposited a casserole dish into the oven. "Still…that Bulma can be so strange. _I_ would never put my child in harm's way."

Ada closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _Pick your battles._

"But at least Trunks turned out to be such a nice boy," her mother finished, pulling off her oven mitts and then wiping her brow.

Ada felt something tug at the pit of her stomach. The opening was perfect. She had to take it. She brushed the hair from her eyes, took another deep breath…and bit her lip. Chi Chi, taking a seat near her daughter on the couch, prepared to say something else.

"It'sinterestingyouwouldsaythat," Ada blurted. Somewhat startled, her mother raised an eyebrow.

"Come again?"

"It's…it's interesting that you would say that…about Trunks being such a nice…boy," she said. "He really is wonderful."

"Wonderful?" Chi Chi chuckled a little. "You sound like you're talking about Prince Charming, Ada."

"Well," Ada cleared her throat, "I mean it. And while we're on the subject, I need to tell you something."

"What's that, dear?" Chi Chi began flipping through a gardening book that she had been loath to put down lately.

"Trunks and I…" _What can she possible say?_ "We've been…dating…for a few months now." Ada swallowed hard and then laughed nervously. "I mean, we haven't gone on any dates, but we've been together."

Chi Chi's eyes slowly moved from the book to her daughter. She blinked thrice, cocked her head slightly, and frowned. "What?" Ada, her jaw dangling a little, said nothing; she was fairly sure that she had made it quite clear.

"You've been telling me that you were _training_ with him!"

"I am training with him!"

"Oh, Ada," Chi Chi pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "What were you thinking?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ada narrowed her eyes suspiciously at her mother, afraid that this spat was going to escalate very quickly.

"It's just that…" Chi Chi exhaled deeply, shoulders slumped. "Ada, you didn't know his father!"

"You're making absolutely no sense, Mom."

"He was insane!" Her voice became shrill, her speech slightly more desperate. "He killed thousands – no, millions – of innocent people!"

"What in Kami's name does that have to do with Trunks?" Ada asked bewilderedly.

"Well…" Chi Chi seemed to be struggling to transform her thoughts into cohesive sentences. "All I'm saying is that I didn't know Vegeta when he was Trunks' age…maybe he was normal then…and if that's the case, then who knows what that boy could be capable of if he goes off the deep end later on?"

Ada stared, dumbfounded, at her mother. As blood rushed to her head, all of the will to keep calm drained out of it. "Please don't tell me that you're comparing Trunks to his father, because we both know that that would be completely and utterly ridiculous," she half-shouted in reply.

"Don't you raise your voice to me! You clearly haven't thought this through, Ada!"

"Actually, Mother, I have–"

Chi Chi, palms toward Ada, shook her head. "No. You let me finish. It's not just that he's that maniac's son, Ada. I mean, his mother isn't exactly well-grounded, either!"

"Bulma's your friend! How could you say something like that?"

"Well," Chi Chi huffed, "she's just…she's flighty!"

"Are you just opposed to this whole concept because you got married to a man you didn't even know?"

It took Ada only half a second to regret the words that had come out of her mouth. Before she could try to repair the damages, her fuming mother lashed back, "I MARRIED THE MAN THAT I LOVED, ADA–"

"You know what?" the younger woman snapped. "This has nothing to do with marriage! Can't you see that you're overreacting? Are you blind, Mother?" With that, Ada did the only thing she could think to do: turned on her heel and walked swiftly out the door of the Son home, unintentionally slamming it behind her. Her eyes began to tear up as she made her way to her great-grandfather's shrine. Ada was amazed at the sheer ridiculousness of the conversation that had just taken place. She was with a guy. And a kind, intelligent, handsome one at that. It was nothing more or less than it sounded, nothing devious, nothing strange.

Ada sat against one of the posts that supported the entryway to the shrine and tried to slow her breathing. She was no longer fourteen; she was a grown woman. And she couldn't remember the last time she had made a bad mistake. Indeed, Ada could think of nothing she had done since before Gohan's death to warrant losing her mother's trust and confidence.

She stayed there for some time, sweater pulled tight around her as the spring breeze turned into wind. There would be storms that evening, almost certainly. Ada ran her fingers through the grass and kept to her thoughts until a battalion of dense, gray clouds from the east covered the whole of the great sky. Just before she rose to go back inside, she heard soft footsteps coming from behind.

"It's going to rain soon." Chi Chi's stern voice carried over the howling wind "You should come inside."

"I was getting ready to," Ada conceded, standing and turning to face her mother. The two women looked at one another in silence for some time.

"Trunks is a good boy, Ada," Chi Chi said finally as she watched her daughter blink away a raindrop that had caught her eyelash.

"I know, Mom." Ada was not sure why she remained looking at her mother when they should have been taking cover from the impending storm. She learned long ago not to expect apologies from Chi Chi; the woman was made of steel. She conceded nothing, took no fault. Whether she ever found it within herself was a matter of speculation.

"It's just that…" The older woman was visibly fighting to remain as composed as her daughter. "He wants to save the world, Ada. That's the kind of man I married. That's the kind of son I had." Chi Chi took a deep breath and folded her arms tightly across her chest. "And I'm alone."

"Mama–"

"And Bulma's alone," Chi Chi continued, voice rising, eyes wet. Ada's throat went dry at the sight of her mother's wall beginning to crumble. "Because as noble as they may be, they leave. And they don't come back, Ada.

"And you don't deserve that. _Are you listening to me?_"

"Yes…" her daughter whispered hoarsely.

"When you give your heart to someone and he dies, you don't get it back." Chi Chi struggled for the words. "You wake up every day, and you remember that everything you had is gone forever."

The rain by now was falling in droplets so heavy that the gusts of wind sweeping across the fields seemed powerless. Ada pushed the wet hair from her eyes and walked toward her mother.

"Did you ever think," she asked, taking Chi Chi's arm in her own, "that Trunks might defeat them?" Ada clung to her mother and began leading her back to their home.

Chi Chi said nothing. In fact, she did not speak again for the rest of the evening but to thank Ada for fetching her a towel and then, later, to tell her daughter goodnight.

**xxx**

Ada sighed at the memory of that evening. She buried her face in Trunks' neck, careful to avoid the wound, and thanked Kami that her mother had refrained from speaking of the relationship since. Indeed, she rarely asked about Trunks at all. Silent disapproval, Ada figured, was the best thing one could hope for from Chi Chi.

After Ada yawned for the third time in as many minutes, Trunks tilted his head away so as to better see her face. "How about going to bed early for a change?"

"Like that's going to happen. I still have to get home, and it's my turn to make dinner–"

"Or you could call Chi Chi and tell her that you're staying here tonight," he replied.

"Oh, absolutely. 'Mother? I'm just going to sleep at Trunks' tonight, alright?' You forget that that doesn't mean quite the same thing as it used to. At least not to her," said Ada. Trunks' face flushed pink, and Ada grinned. There were certain things about him that would never change, which she found incredibly comforting.

"I could talk to her…if you'd like," he offered, sincerity lacing his words.

"Always a gentleman. Thank you, but I wouldn't want you to have convince my mother that she won't have a grandchild in nine months just because her adult daughter isn't spending the night in her childhood home." Ada then reached for the telephone and began dialing.

"I'll be in my room. I've got to finish up the blueprints to the cooling system upgrade for the time machine," Trunks said as he stood. Ada nodded and winked at him, and he departed. She spent a few fleeting seconds appreciating his backside before her mother's voice filled the speaker.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mama."

"Hello, dear – what are you up to?"

"Actually, I was calling to tell you that I'm going to stay here at Tr – at Bulma's – because I'm absolutely exhausted tonight." Ada scrunched up her nose and bit her lip, waiting for the dragon to breathe its fire.

"Oh…well I suppose I understand." Chi Chi seemed slightly wary. "But I'd better not have a grandchild in nine months. Are you listening? Ada!"

"YES, I'm listening, Mother. I realize this is somewhat shocking to hear, but I haven't been sixteen for years. Therefore, if you'd like to stop speaking to me as such, you can. I know that you enjoy it, though, so–"

"That's enough with the attitude. There are just certain things that, as a mother, I'm obligated to say. It's for your own good, you know," Chi Chi snapped.

"Right. And I appreciate your looking out for me. I'll see you tomorrow night, Mom. Love you," Ada said.

"I love you, too," Chi Chi sighed. "Good night, dear."

**xxx**

Later that night, with the sun only a few hours from again peeking over the horizon, Trunks Brief found himself gazing at the beauty nestled against his chest. It had been several days, he reckoned, since he had last slept; at least tonight he had something to look at while he succumbed to the insomnia. And what a something she was. So frightened was he of waking Aida that he scarcely allowed himself to breathe. Rather, Trunks simply lay there, his eyes stopping to take in each curve of her face, each wisp of ebony hair that fell across her eyes.

He could, he thought with a smile, get used to this. To opening his eyes and finding Ada there beside him. To feeling the warmth of her body pressed against his own, and not just every once in a great while but every night. He certainly could get used to it. But, he knew, he shouldn't. In one of the darker corners of his mind, Trunks kept the nagging reminder that their relationship was only temporary, that the future of everything they had made together over the last half-year was contingent on his safe return from the past. Ada gave him no less than a heart of stone in that regard; she always reassured him, with the utmost confidence, that the androids would be easily defeated. Indeed, she never stopped reminding Trunks that he was going to save the world.

Trunks wanted more than anything for Ada to be right. He desperately prayed that he would not disappoint, that his growing strength combined with that of Goku…of Vegeta, even…would eliminate any threat to the Earth in their time and in his own. Prayers, though, were only words, and he was only made of flesh and blood. Trunks could not let his imagination run amok or his dreams grow too vivid. For the same reason he had not yet made love to Ada, he now pushed from his mind any thoughts about the future. Nothing was certain, and acting as though it was could only end in hurt, anger, and grief.

As he lay beside Ada, Trunks wondered whether Gohan had approached the androids knowing that he would die that day. Had his father gone to fight them, aware that he would not walk away? Before Goku fell ill, did he, too, have the same sense of foreboding that Trunks now felt? When Death comes for you, does He trail far enough behind to go unnoticed? Or does He delight in the fear of the damned?

Trunks squeezed his eyes shut. He tightened his arms around Ada and tried to steady his own jagged breathing by listening to hers.

He had never felt so alone.

**xxx**

_**Postscript:**_ Whew! That chapter was rather emotional to write. Thank you so, so much for all of the reviews I've gotten! When I first published this story, I never dreamed that it would have one reader, let alone many. I really do feel honored by your readership and loyalty. Stay tuned for more!


	18. And Stay With Me

CHAPTER 17

_Disclaimer: Several short phrases in this chapter were taken from Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Mr. Flood's Party" and from the film _The Young Victoria_._

xxx

Ada hurried down the steps leading into the Brief kitchen, wiping the wet hair from her eyes. She shivered and struggled to get her sopping jacket off.

"Slow down, girl," laughed Bulma from her seat at the kitchen table. "You haven't missed anything. How's the monsoon?"

"Still a monsoon," Ada answered, stepping over to the sink to wring out the jacket. A week before, it had begun to pour down rain. The clouds were still releasing their fury over the city, turning it into a swamp of concrete, floodwater, and mud. Ada hung her jacket over the back of a chair and set her dirty shoes in the sink. She took a breath.

"How is he?" she asked quietly, taking her hair down from the damp, knotty mess at the top of her head.

"Doing alright, I think," Bulma returned. "We just finished running the final checks on the time machine, and it's all in order. He said he was going to shower."

Ada nodded, nervously – and sloppily – braiding together her dripping hair. She looked meaningfully at Bulma, who gave her a small, reassuring smile. There was, they both knew, little to say. They had been waiting years for the launch that would begin in just twelve hours' time. Everything was as planned. Everything was ready. Everything was…

Doing her best to smile back at Bulma, the young woman walked slowly from the kitchen to the hallway. She entered Trunks' room, then, after closing the door behind her, began peeling off her soaking clothes.

"Hey," Ada said to the bathroom door to her right as she approached Trunks' dresser and opened the third drawer from the top. She heard a quiet noise issue forth from the bathroom and took it to be some sort of acknowledgement of her presence. After rifling through a stack of pajama pants and some undershirts, Ada found a tee shirt and pulled it over her head. She then began rummaging around for a pair of boxers to complete her outfit. Between running errands for her mother, picking up some things for Bulma, and tutoring, it seemed to Ada as though she had been swimming around the city in her freezing, clinging clothes all day. The welcome feeling of dry cotton against her skin was enough to make her forget, if only for a moment, the man on the other side of the bathroom door.

She collapsed, exhausted, onto Trunks' bed and, for some moments, just lay on her back, eyes closed, listening to the _plop plop_ of the water as it burst against the tile floor of the shower. When Ada opened her eyes again, she surveyed the familiar room with a sense of comfort. It had hardly changed since Trunks was a boy. Sure, the markers and crayons upon the desk had turned to stacks of blueprints and small mechanical devices, the functions of which Trunks had explained to Ada on some occasion or other. She could not recall the finer points of the lessons now. Where toys and clothes had littered the floor years before, there were now only a couple pair of shoes, a number of books, and the small pile of wet clothes that Ada had neglected to put into the hamper.

Nothing in her life had been constant. Her family was gone. Millions of people had died. Entire forests had burned to ash. Mountains had crumbled before her eyes. Cities had fallen in moments. Everything had changed.

But this place, this room, in all its simplicity, had not. And something about the man that slept in the bed on which she was laying at that moment gave Ada hope that she would one day feel so secure about all things.

The rapid _pitter-patter_ of the shower suddenly came to a halt, and Ada glanced at the bathroom door. She sat up and took a deep breath, trying to clear her head so that she would be able to greet Trunks with a smile – even if it was insincere. He would almost certainly need it.

Trunks emerged from the door moments later, enveloped in steam. His hair was still sopping wet, and the slump in his shoulders seemed to creep through his arms and into his hands. He looked, Ada saw, tired – but more than that, he looked defeated. As though he had been fighting for hours on end and would collapse at any moment. As though the Earth itself rested atop his frame but the burden had become too much to bear. He gazed down at his hands, which clung gingerly at the towel wrapped around his waist.

Ada was standing before Trunks even before he had raised his head to look at her. She threw her arms around him, desperately worried at his sudden weakness, and he leaned into her. He silently rested his head on her shoulder, burying his face in her neck.

Tears gathering in her eyes, Ada took the towel from Trunks and, moving away ever so slightly, began drying his body. After finishing his torso, she moved to his back, where she sopped up each water droplet and then planted tiny kisses in place of them. She ruffled the towel over his head, then handed it back to him and moved to his dresser to fetch a clean pair of boxers.

Several minutes later, damp purple locks sticking out every which way, Trunks sat down on the edge of the bed and massaged the bridge of his nose. He felt a finger brush a bit of hair from his face and looked up to see Ada standing before him, doing her best to smile. He smiled back at her, mournfully but sincerely, and took her hands in his own. In a desperate attempt to recreate some kind of normalcy between them, Ada broke the silence some moments later.

"We match," she commented, her smile widening slightly as she gestured to the boxer shorts she was wearing. Trunks looked at her and then down at his own waist to see that they were, in fact, wearing the same pattern in different colors. He smiled and pulled her to him.

"They suit you," he replied, wrapping his arms around her center and resting his head against her stomach.

Silence once more.

Ada squeezed her eyes shut, longing to say something, _anything_…and coming up empty. There were a million things she wanted to tell him, but hearing them would do him no good at all. She looked down at him, her eyes beginning to tear, and, without thinking, said the thing at the forefront of her thoughts:

"You don't have to go." She felt him tense and loosen his arms.

"Ada–"

"I just don't want you to forget that…that you're doing this to yourself. And…if you wanted…you could just stop, just decide not to lea–" Ada's voice had very quickly taken on a tinge of desperation.

Trunks withdrew himself from the embrace and looked up at her, eyes hardened. "Doing it to myself?"

"You know what I mean," Ada stumbled to correct herself. "The pressure you feel…it's all coming from you, Trunks."

"Because you, and my mother…you've never encouraged me to keep training, to keep trying, to work harder." His words were uncharacteristically short and icy.

"That's not what I'm saying–"

"And I came up with the time machine idea on my own, too, I guess." Trunks stood and walked across the room, running a hand through his hair.

"I misspoke," Ada stammered, suddenly realizing that she was not going to be able to fix what she had just let unravel.

"Misspoke?" He turned around to face her again. "Or is that what you really wanted to say and it's just now coming out? You've been putting this all on me the whole time?"

"No, Trunks; don't be ridiculous," she snapped. "I just meant to say that if you decided you didn't want to go through with it, no one would blame you–"

"Of course," he muttered. He was speaking…acting…like a different person. He was angry, and allowing that anger to show. It was, in a way, frightening.

"Maybe none of us thought this through before, you know?" Ada said. "Maybe…you and I could keep training until we're strong enough–"

"But that's not the plan, is it?" he half-shouted. Ada's jaw dropped slightly, taken aback by the way Trunks was speaking to her. It made the fighter in her mind claw its way out.

"Well maybe I don't like the plan anymore," she snapped back, her voice rising with his.

"You've been awfully encouraging this whole time to be saying that now."

"And you've gone along with it!"

"Because I've got people depending on me!"

"Depending on you to stay alive!"

Silence. They glared at one another for some moments until Ada could no longer take it. She wasn't angry. She didn't want to pretend like she was. Not tonight.

"I know you think," she said, her voice quiet, "that, somehow, I'm going to be able to move on, like nothing ever happened, if you don't come back. And it's ridiculous and naïve, because this relationship was more than that from the beginning. So stop pretending like sacrificing yourself is going to do anyone any good. It isn't noble. It's selfish."

Trunks dropped his gaze, and the slump in his posture returned. He leaned against the dresser that was behind him and rubbed his face with his hands.

"I'm not going back to the past to sacrifice myself. I don't…plan on dying…" He looked up at her, eyes red, hair matted and messy. "I don't want to die…that's just it…I…"

Ada took a hesitant step toward him, but he turned his face. "I'm afraid."

"Afraid?" she breathed. She couldn't keep the exasperation out of her voice.

"Yes, afraid," he snapped back, his cheeks reddening.

"Trunks." Ada gave him a small smile – all that she could muster – and took one of his hands. "It's not something to be ashamed of."

He stared at her mutely for some moments before squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. "You say that, but you've never met Goku. I mean…" he fumbled, "I used to think that Gohan was fearless and reckless. But Goku…he never hesitated, never showed a moment's fear, even after all that I told him. He was ready for the challenge. And I can only imagine that my father reacted the same way when he heard the news."

"And?"

"And I'm afraid."

"You're talking about men who had nothing to lose, Trunks."

"Your father has a family, in the past. And Gohan, he had you, and your mother."

Ada sighed and shook her head. "Even in the past, my father has already died once. And whatever Gohan might have felt that he still had to hold onto didn't stop him from all but committing suicide. Even if they really had everything to lose…they didn't see it. They didn't act like it. You can hardly fear death when you relentlessly pursue it."

"My father would call me a coward."

"Your father murdered millions of people without batting an eye."

Trunks squeezed Ada's hands in his and swallowed hard, afraid of what her answer would be when he asked, "And what about you?"

"What?"

"What would you say about me?"

She paused, giving him a firm gaze and smiling at him softly. "That you have good reason not to seek death out. That you can be brave and afraid at the same time." She kissed the top of his knuckle. "And that you love me."

"I do," he breathed.

"I still think that you're going to save the world, you know."

Trunks couldn't help but smile, albeit sadly. He dropped his forehead down to hers. "I do."

"And you'll come back to me."

"I will."

"And stay with me."

"And stay with you."

He leaned down and gently kissed Ada, then stood for some time in silence with his cheek to hers.

"You should rest," she whispered. "Early morning tomorrow."

"Coming?" Trunks asked

"Mm-hm."

And with that, Trunks picked her up and carried her over to his bed. He lay her down gently, as though, Saiyan though she was, she was made of glass and prone to break at any moment. As though his treating Ada with trembling care was somehow akin to his cradling their relationship in his hands, fearing it would crumble if he took one misstep. He would be leaving the next morning. Perhaps forever. For the first time in his life, the world looked like crystal waiting to shatter. So much could go wrong.

He turned off the light and crawled into bed next to Ada, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness before seeing the clear outline of her head on the pillow next to him. Just as she reached out, seeking his embrace, Trunks pulled her to him. He pulled at the quilt at their feet until it was on top of them, keeping out the world.

"Ada?"

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Trunks."

xxx

A/N: Well, it's only been a century or so since I last updated. I do apologize. As I promised, however, I have not abandoned this story. I don't plan on doing so, either. So, dear readers, if any of you are still out there, I have a question. I'm going to follow Trunks into the past, but I'm wondering whether I should begin that as a different story, a sort of 'part two'. I would end this one with one more chapter and then begin the next. The other option is continuing to post on this one and having lots of chapters. Opinions?


	19. Come Back To Me

**Chapter 18**

For several moments, Trunks could not breathe. The air was terribly thick, and the intense gravity certainly didn't help. The white light of the chamber made it difficult to see.

"It's hot," he said. "There's less air, and the gravity is different." He blinked and began walking toward the edge of the living area. Suddenly, the young man stopped.

"What? I don't believe it!" Trunks breathed in astonishment. "There's nothing here! We're surrounded by total emptiness! We're floating in a gigantic void…what kind of place is this?"

"Too much for you?" Vegeta jeered from behind him. Trunks turned his head a bit and gritted his teeth.

"Of course not! But…now I know why few can stand a whole year in this place. It's…" he searched for the right word, if such a thing was possible when faced with the sight before him. "…overwhelming."

"It is," Vegeta confirmed with a smirk. "It is."

Trunks gulped. An entire year? Here? And not only that, but trying at the same time to maintain the wall in front of his father? _I must not let my father see that I am afraid,_ he thought as he steeled himself_. This is my chance to prove myself to him. But I don't know if I can spend an entire year in this place! It's too much for me- it's too much!_

He squeezed his eyes shut and, in about five seconds' time, decided that he could do it, that he _would_ do it, and that he would give his father no excuse to speak poorly of him.

One year.

Moments later, Trunks felt himself falling, and everything fading to black.

He could barely open his eyes. The left was nearly swollen shut already, and the right, he could tell, was going to follow suit. He could not find the strength to wipe away the blood and sweat that had pooled beneath his lids after having dripped down his forehead, let alone to pull his crumpled body from the floor.

The floor. Ten minutes before, the most immaculate white he had seen. It was now covered in vomit and blood. Vomit. The taste in his mouth.

Vegeta's attack had been so unexpected, so lightning-fast. And then had come another, just as Trunks tried to find his footing. And another. And another.

His right eye was forcing its way shut now. He turned it upward. There, covered in a pinkish haze thanks to the gash above Trunks' brow, was his father. Smirking. Chuckling, almost.

_Who is this man?_

Trunks gasped for air. None came. Then, a moment before he lost consciousness, he heard himself whisper, almost inaudibly, _One year_.

xxx

Bulma hadn't slept a wink. As she knocked lightly on her son's bedroom door, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. He and Ada probably hadn't dozed off either. Why in the world Trunks felt it necessary to rise so early was quite beyond his mother. Of course, he would want to leave at about the same hour in their time that he hoped to arrive in the past, just for ease of travel. It would, hopefully, reduce calculation error. But that was hours away. Six a.m. seemed a bit excessive. It was his journey, though, and Bulma was going to do it the way he wanted.

She sighed and knocked again. "Hey in there. Better put your clothes on; I'm coming in." She chuckled tiredly to herself. As if. Her son, the prude. Somehow she had managed to raise a kid that was making responsible decisions.

Bulma couldn't take all of the credit, she mused. Vegeta had done just as much to shape Trunks's thoughts on sexual responsibility.

"I don't know what you could possibly be up to–" She opened the door and stopped short, staring, dumbfounded, at the bed.

They were sleeping. They had actually gotten through the night without sitting around and fretting, or planning, or talking, or Kami knows what else. Bulma backed out of the room and slowly closed the door. Thirty more minutes wouldn't hurt anyone.

After all, she figured, they deserved as much time as they could have.

xxx

"I'm going to check the capsules one more time," Trunks heard from the uncharacteristically nervous woman behind him. He smirked and shook his head. He was sure that he would be a wreck himself right now if he hadn't been so distracted by Ada's own hurrying about. While his mother ran the final checks on the time machine, which was now on a small patch of grass just outside of the Capsule Corp. compound, Ada had been going through every other minute detail.

"They're probably in the same place you left them ten minutes ago," Trunks answered, approaching her from behind. He stretched his arms around her and pulled the capsule case from her shaking hands before gripping them in his own. Ada squeezed his fingers and took a deep breath, laying the back of her head against his chest.

"I know I'm being ridiculous."

"Everything's going to be fine. Time machine's in great shape. I'll be there and back before you have time to worry."

"It seems strange, you know – that you've spent the last three years preparing for a trip that's only going to last a day. For a fight that won't be more than a few hours, at worst," Ada replied.

"Mom and I both came out with the same answer in our calculations. The discrepancy in my return time will only be a couple days, max. I could be back by tonight, even. It all depends on how precise the time machine's nav calculations are."

They had had this conversation dozens of times. For Trunks, the trip would be less than a day. The battle with the androids in the past would be over before the sun set, and he would be on the way back to his own time. For those waiting for him, the time machine could return at any point in the next 68 hours (give or take 4.57 minutes, according to the calculations). Just a small trip. No worries. Just a little skirmish. He probably wouldn't break a sweat. _Back before dinnertime_, Trunks joked, whenever Ada started to bite her thumbnails in worry.

Ada turned to face him, eyes hard. Her hair was wet from the shower she had just finished, and black locks were tossed here and there about her bare shoulders. The simple white tank top she wore was, like every other piece of clothing anyone on the planet owned, very old. It was fit for a young adult, not a grown woman, and the fabric stretched tautly over her chest. Trunks had, months ago, mastered the art of taking her in with a glance rather than a stare. If his eyes lingered a moment too long, she would catch him and give him playful hell for hours _("My face is up _here_, sweetheart."_).

"Come back to me," she demanded quietly, gripping his forearms tightly.

Trunks took no time with his answer. He leaned down for a passionate kiss, taking her face in his hands before running them through her untamed hair. Ada responded hungrily, pressing herself against him and fastening her arms about his neck. After some moments, Trunks' lips wandered to Ada's jawline, then to her ear. Finally, he took her neck, relishing the feeling of her soft, cool skin against his tongue. All the while, he could feel Ada's _ki_ climb higher and higher.

"Come back to me," she whispered into his hair.

She wanted him desperately. He felt her hands wandering about the hem of his shirt, but never actually grasping it. Trunks summoned all of his strength, every ounce of will he had, and planted one final, chaste kiss on her shoulder before pulling his head back to look at her again. Ada gave him a sad smile.

"Someday," she said, repeating the words he had used so many times before, "but not yet."

"I'm sorry," Trunks replied, pulling her to him in a hug.

"Don't be. I understand."

He smiled at her words, kind but false. She didn't understand, not really. She wasn't a bastard. Trunks would take no chances on bringing another like himself into the world. He had made up his mind long, long ago to do everything that his father didn't. If that meant denying himself Ada until he could marry her, until their future together was certain, so be it. He was not Vegeta. He was not Vegeta. _I am not Vegeta_.

"Hey there." Bulma wandered into the garage, pulling off her oily, blackened work gloves and wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. "All systems go. It's as ready as it'll ever be."

Ada opened her mouth to respond but found that she had nothing to say. Instead, she simply nodded and looked over at Trunks. For a moment, he, too, was unsure of how to respond. _All systems go._ He had been waiting, working, training for three years, and it was finally time.

"Right," he said, nodding firmly. He blinked and started looking around. Everything was in the time machine except what he would be carrying on his person, which meant, first of all, his jacket…he had just had it…_Where is…?_

Ada tapped him on the shoulder and, with a small smile, held up the familiar piece of denim clothing. He returned the smile and turned so that she could slip the jacket over him, as she was wont to do. She straightened the collar and brushed off the sleeves, then reached for the sword lying across the table next to them. She reached the straps over his shoulder and under his arm, respectively, and buckled them, then checked that it was secure in its sheath.

"Armed and ready, then?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Almost." Ada reached for the case of capsules that she had checked so many times that morning and slipped it into the front pocket of Trunks' jacket. She brushed a stray lock of lavender hair into place, then stepped back and gave him the once-over. Taking a deep breath, she folded her arms nervously and nodded. "Ready."

Trunks shifted his gaze to his mother, whose eyes were wet despite her feigned air of casual confidence. In that moment, she looked older than she ever had before. Every crease that lined Bulma's skin seemed twenty times deeper, as though all of the goodbyes she had ever been forced to say were carved into her brow.

_I used to think that I was one of the lucky ones_, she had once told her son, in a moment of despair. _But there's no such thing. You can either be dead, or you can be alone. And I'm not dead yet_.

Trunks embraced her. After returning the gesture, Bulma pulled back and looked her boy in the eyes. "Ready to go, kiddo?" After a nod and a smile, the three made their way to the sparse patch of grass in front of the remains of the old Capsule Corp. central building. Ten minutes later, Trunks was closing the glass covering atop the machine and firing up the engines.

He nodded down at his mother, who had decided the night before that she would not cry, and silently promised her that he was going to make her proud. Bulma gave her son a thumbs-up, a wink, and a smile, as though she were bidding her child a confident goodbye on his first day of school.

As the time machine began to lift into the air, Trunks turned his eyes on Ada. She looked so small from up there…Trunks had to remind himself that she wasn't the tiny, fragile girl he was seeing from his high seat but a woman who could take care of herself. Who _would_ take care of herself, no matter what happened.

_Come back to me._

Trunks thought of Ada's words and realized, for the first time in three years, that every promise he had made to her was meaningless. If destroying the androids in the past meant dying, or being unable to return, he would have no choice but to follow through with his original purpose. He would die, and die knowing that he had lied to her.

_For her own good…she knew all along…there is no choice…_

As a million thoughts swirled about Trunks' mind, each painfully adamant in its own way, he did a final systems check. Then, with the pull of a lever, the time machine vanished from the sky.

xxx

At the same second that the time machine vanished, so did Trunks. Body and soul.

And Ada was not ready for it.

His _ki_ had disappeared completely, and she had never in her life felt that absence. Since her infancy, even when she was unaware what she was sensing when she felt human presences, she had felt that of Trunks. She had grown up with it, had come to recognize it as him, fully, completely, and unabashedly _him_, his essence, his…self. No matter the distance between them, it had been there, even faintly.

Even when they had stopped speaking after Gohan's death, there were nights that she would lay awake and meditate on the fact that she could feel Trunks. As lonely as she felt, she would never be alone because of him.

And he was gone. _Gone_.

Ada had only ever felt the same sensation when Gohan had died. But that had been different. He had been her brother, of course, and the most important thing in her life, but it was not the same. Over the past year, she had gradually allowed Trunks to break down every mental wall that she had built up to the point that his _ki_, it felt, had begun to flow together with her own. As if their _ki_ reflected their closeness as a couple, his mental being had become more and more intertwined with hers. Its vanishing left a vacuum. Ada felt as though part of her own soul had been ripped away.

She could not fight the tears that began to well up in her eyes, nor could she seem to catch her breath. She grasped at her heart, as though the missing piece might have just broken off and could be caught before falling to the ground and shattering.

xxx

Trunks gave the city below a final look before engaging the final sequence in the time machine. The trip would take only a few minutes, and the potential error in calculations meant that the others very well could be in combat with the androids when he arrived. He had to be ready for anything. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself and pulled the lever.

The infinite blackness outside of the machine, he was ready for. The emptiness in himself, he was not.

It was immediate and jarring, causing him to gasp for air and throwing him hard into his seat.

Ada was…gone. Well he was gone, so of course she was gone…but…but she was _gone_.

It felt like nothingness, like a part of himself had been sliced away without warning.

_But I've been on this trip before. Nothing like this happened then-_

Trunks blinked and tried to catch his breath. Of course it hadn't happened then. The two of them had been…friends. Actually, they had hardly spoken since Gohan's death. And now…well…it suddenly became very clear how far things had come. Indeed, if they had wanted to, he wondered, would they have been able to turn back without leaving serious mental scars behind? Not that either of them had entered into the relationship lightheartedly, but neither of them had expected this, either.

He leaned back and breathed deeply, realizing he had perhaps a minute before arriving in the past. He had to be focused, ready to fight.

Yet, there was no Ada, and all that he could think about was the hollowness inside of him.

xxx

The hollowness. It had not receded, Trunks noted grimly as he sponged alcohol over the gash in his leg. When he had come to, dried blood on his face and on the floor around him, there had been half of a senzu bean lying next to him. A parting gift from Vegeta, he assumed, so that the young man would have the strength to carry himself to the medical supply cabinet in the bathroom.

_How thoughtful_, he grimaced. He finished bandaging himself and limped from the bathroom. There were two identical beds in the living quarters of the time chamber, built several feet apart from one another into the same wall. Each had a pair of curtains for privacy, and those on the right bed were drawn. Clearly, his father was losing no sleep over the day's events. Trunks made his way to the bed on the left. He contemplated fetching the capsule case that he'd left in the pocket of his jacket – Ada had packed him an extra pair of clothes, just in case – but found that showering and tending to his wounds had drained him of all the energy the senzu had supplied. He threw his bath towel to the ground and collapsed on the bed, pulling the curtains shut behind him.

_Back before dinnertime_, he mocked himself. Maybe for Ada, and for his mother. It would all be the same to them. He, on the other hand, would not be returning home for a year, and he would be spending that year with a man who had beaten him to the edge of death mere hours earlier. Just thinking about the flame-haired Saiyan in the bed next to him made Trunks tense and grit his teeth, rage flowing over him at both his father and the entire trip to the past. He was exhausted, but there would be no sleeping in his state. It had been, without a doubt, the worst several days of his life since Gohan's death, and all Trunks could do was lie awake and burn over every detail of them.

He had arrived in the past later than expected. Somehow, his calculations had been off. His mother hadn't caught the mistake either. So much for a genius family. By the time Trunks had found the others, the fight was half over, but not with the androids he knew. These were different. Besides that, Goku had only just fallen ill – weeks later than Trunks had anticipated. The situation had begun to fall apart before he could so much as get his bearings.

Less than an hour later, his father had blown his way into Dr. Gero's laboratory to discover that androids 17 and 18 had both been awakened, along with another unexpected monster- a "number 16". To Trunks' chagrin, Vegeta had then insisted on fighting the creatures. By the time it was over, the lot of the fighters were passed out next to a mountain highway. Trunks also had a sizeable chink in his sword, and Vegeta, an even bigger one in his pride.

The rest of the day had included the introduction of the creature Cell into the fray, the discovery of the blueprints to Android 17, the destruction of Dr. Gero's laboratory basement, and, perhaps most importantly, Goku's reawakening.

In a matter of an afternoon, everything Trunks had believed possible about the circumstances of the past timeline was changed. And there was every possibility his interference had caused it.

Perhaps to prove something to the man he called 'father' – or perhaps as a means of punishing himself for his meddling, he was still unsure which – he spent the next three days sitting atop a rock, waiting for his father, who was perched on a tall outcrop, to acknowledge his presence.

Trunks was angry, thirsty, starving, lonely, and more miserable than he had ever been…until he learned of what awaited him in the Room of Spirit and Time. If he returned home at all, if he managed to live through the battle with the androids and Cell, it would not be for another year.

An entire year, alone, for all intents and purposes.

He had not signed up for this.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to lie in bed and bury his face in Ada's neck and apologize for his false promises. He wanted to remember what it felt like to have her _ki_ within him, to hold onto her forever.

Trunks turned onto his side to face the wall and grimaced at the pain that shot through him. He could hear muffled snoring coming from the other bed. _I don't suppose he'd answer if I asked how he manages to sleep at night… _

And with that, Trunks managed to sleep himself.

He did not dream. He had never dreamt. Not since he was young.

But that night, he did.

**xxx**

**A/N:** Some dialogue at the beginning taken from DBZ dub episode 132, or 133. It's been a while since I wrote it. Please review- I hope you enjoyed the new (and long-coming) chapter!


	20. Days Apart and Lonely Nights

CHAPTER 20

_Ada sat among the remaining baskets of produce, counting the leftovers from the morning's trading. A few potatoes, two heads of cabbage, a pound or so of onions. The tomatoes had been snatched up early, as had the carrots, the ginger root, and the cucumbers. The young girl silently congratulated herself on a few particularly choice trades she had made, including one for several old paperbacks – her early thirteenth birthday present to herself – which she had already tucked safely away into her jeans. If her mother found out, there would be hell to pay._

_She heard the pitter-patter of rain on cement and looked up. Thankful for the shelter of the collapsed overpass, Ada began gathering up the last of the goods. Most of it would keep until the next market gathering. The rest would make for dinner that week. _Cabbage soup. Mmm.

_At the sound of approaching footsteps, Ada turned to find a woman looking hesitantly at the very cabbages she herself had just scorned._

"_They're very good," Ada said, dispensing with formalities. "Would you like some?"_

_The woman, who was carrying a small child, smiled wanly and shook her head. Her face was drawn and thin. Ada tried to guess her age. She could have been twenty-five or forty-five for all that Ada knew. Wrinkles lined her eyes and mouth, but that was no great indicator these days. Shifting the child, who was barefoot and somewhat underdressed for the cool weather, the woman spoke._

"_I was just looking. But thank you."_

"_I'll trade for almost anything," Ada spouted, her eyes shifting from the toddler to its mother. "Really."_

_The woman said nothing as she looked at Ada, her face blank. Nodding, she gave Ada that sad smile again. _

She doesn't have anything to trade.

_As the woman turned and began walking away, Ada bit her thumbnail and looked around for her mother. Chi Chi was some ways off, talking to another vendor. The girl quickly stuffed an armful of potatoes into the bag of remaining cabbages before tying it up. She hoisted it over one shoulder and jogged to catch up with the mother. Stealing furtive glances to the right and left, Ada shoved the bag into the woman's empty arm._

_The woman looked from the sack to Ada, then opened her mouth. Nothing came out. That was just as well, Ada thought as she stepped back and then turned to walk away. Talking would have made things awkward._

_As she made her way back to her own pile of things, Ada realized she should have told the woman to keep quiet. She and her mother couldn't afford to have people coming to them for handouts. Turning to watch the woman duck into an alleyway – one of the two that led toward the entrances to Lowtown – Ada supposed she hadn't needed to. The woman and her child would be eating this week, and the next, because of Ada; she wouldn't repay the young girl by talking. Besides, no one in the city asked questions. Probably to avoid hearing the answers. Where and how you got your food was your business. _

_Ada gathered up the day's loot – several pounds of flour, a bit of sugar, tea, a tiny jar of yeast, some salt, a dozen eggs, a box of powdered milk, four candles, a box of matches, and the two things she was really proud to have gotten: a small bag of cocoa and four light bulbs. Overall, a successful market day. Chi Chi would be happy; or, as close as she ever got to being happy, now that Gohan was gone. 'Mildly pleased' seemed more appropriate._

_Just as Ada's thoughts wandered away from her mother, her mother wandered over to Ada._

"_How did you do?" she asked. Ada pointed out the profits of her trade, and Chi Chi nodded. The woman had been making rounds at the stalls of various people they had come to know, cutting deals of her own. Her arms were full of sundries from said deals, and she dropped them into one of the empty produce baskets._

"_I didn't do too badly myself. Let's head over to Capsule Corporation."_

_Ada nodded and began loading everything into the back of her grandfather's old hover car. She then hopped into the passenger's seat and buckled herself in._

"_Bulma's going to wish we had some more left over. Oh, well," Chi Chi sighed, starting the car._

_Ten minutes later, the car alighted on the lawn of the destroyed Capsule Corp. main building. As Chi Chi and Ada got out, Bulma Brief hurried from her basement home to greet them, a sullen-looking Trunks in tow. The rain had slowed to a chilly drizzle by the time Bulma reached them._

"_Hey there! Good market day?" the former heiress asked with a smile. _

"_Yeah – not a lot left for you, though," Ada responded._

"_You know that's not what's important," Bulma chided, pulling Ada into a hug of greetings. _

_It was the truth, Ada knew. She and her mother gave Bulma the fruits of their garden out of friendship, not necessity. Money counted for nothing anymore, but Bulma had marketable skills as well as warehouses full of electronic gadgets that would fetch a great deal in trade. Ada and Chi Chi had neither. The sizeable garden they kept – and the occasional voluntary kindness from Bulma – was their livelihood. Without it, they would be destitute. _

_Bulma and Chi Chi began chatting then – about the weather, the market, the recent attacks in the southern capitol – as though nothing in the world were wrong. It made Ada a little sick to her stomach to hear them, to see Bulma's cheerfulness (though it was most likely feigned), to watch people living like her brother was still alive and there was still some kind of hope in the world. She walked away, hands stuffed in her pockets, and kicked at a chunk of concrete that had probably come off the building behind her._

_Though Ada's back was turned to him, she could feel Trunks slowly approach her. _

"_What happened to your head?" he blurted, smirking a little._

_Ada wheeled around and glared at him. "Why do you care?" She had been avoiding mirrors for the last week and didn't need anyone to remind her how ridiculous she looked. Her hair had been lopped off at her shoulders, but one side hung at least an inch and a half longer than the other. It was shorter in the back than the front, and most of her ebony locks seemed to be punctuated by scissor marks._

"_Because you look like you got run over by a lawn mower," he grinned devilishly._

_Ada opened her mouth to blurt some derisive comment or other at him but found that she just…didn't feel like it. She fingered the ends of her destroyed hair and looked down at her feet. Did it really matter if he knew? Maybe it would make him stop taunting her._

"_Mom was combing my hair one night, but it was really tangled…she got really upset, like she does now, you know…and just chopped it all off." _And then she started sobbing and locked herself in room for two days. Nothing out of the ordinary.

_Trunks' expression softened. Ada knew he thought Chi Chi had gone crazy. Sometimes, Ada was afraid he was right. From the moment she had seen Gohan's body…her mother hadn't recovered. Maybe she never would._

_Trunks seemed to be at a loss for what to say; Ada, frankly, didn't want to hear any more from him. She was turning to walk back to the car when she heard, "With those clothes on, it makes you look like a boy." She surveyed herself briefly. The shirt was a bit big, and the skateboarder that adorned the front of it was fading badly. Her jeans were baggy and grass-stained, and her tennis shoes had a small hole in the top._

"_Well that's because they're boys' clothes," she spat at him. "I didn't ask to wear them. D'you want 'em back?" She was fuming. Trunks looked a bit frightened at the knowledge that he'd touched a nerve. "But you don't need them, do you? You've got your shiny new sneakers and pretty little outfits instead. You've never even worn a hand-me-down, have you? You've probably never been hungry, either. Or worked a day in your life. Have you?"_

_Trunks blinked and opened his mouth, but Ada knew that he couldn't say anything to that._

"_I don't know why he bothered with you," she said, her voice rising. "You just slowed him down. He would have been stronger without some kid to look after."_

"_And you let him die," Ada whispered. "You might as well have killed him yourself."_

_She never saw the punch coming. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground with blood gushing from her nose, and Trunks was stalking away angrily._

_By the time Chi Chi and Bulma realized what had happened, the boy was already back in his basement home. Ada was trying to stifle the flow of blood with her hands. All she could think about was how much she hated Trunks and how furious Chi Chi was going to be that she had incited a fight. _

xxx

Trunks awoke the next morning – or what he assumed was morning, as the lighting in the chamber was beginning to brighten – to a series of monstrous aches from head to toe. He had the use of one eye; the other was swollen tightly shut. His limbs were stiff and leaden, but they were working. At least the senzu bean had taken care of any breaks he'd suffered. He shivered and pulled the coverlet up over his naked body, pressing his face into the pillow. _Day one, _he thought. _Only 364 more to go after this_.

He worked his way out of bed and pulled on the change of clothes that Ada had packed in one of the capsules. It was simple: a loose pair of black pants and a gray tank top. Opting to forego shoes for the day, Trunks made his way to the kitchen area and prepared himself a bowl of hot cereal. He couldn't remember when he'd last eaten, and yet he still wasn't hungry.

He deposited the dishes in the sink, noticing that another dirty set was already there. His father was up and gone already. Trunks silently rejoiced at that fact until he realized that he was going to make very little progress without a sparring partner. At some point, the two would have to meet again. And next time, Trunks would be ready. Gritting his teeth, he ran his fingers over his swollen eyelid and down around the torn skin on his jaw. Yes, he would be ready.

Trunks quickly found that his body was not responding well to sudden and intense movement. Within a half hour of beginning his exercises, he found himself panting on the floor. He was feverish, drenched with sweat, and…and _angry_. The young man suddenly punched the floor of the time chamber with ferocious intensity. It did not budge. He could not break through this place. He could not break through anything here. He wanted to pummel his father, but he was not strong enough. He wanted to push himself to the next level, just as Vegeta was trying to, but his body was giving out before he could begin.

Trunks was useless.

He let out a roar and punched into the ground again, and again. His knuckle began to bleed, but he continued until he could no longer feel the pain. He was weak, and the androids were stronger here. And then…and then there was _Cell_… They would all make a plaything of him, then toss him aside as though it were his destiny to die here.

In an instant, Trunks stood and unleashed a terrifying surge of energy. _I don't want to die, not _here. He had always thought of his own time as the ugly stepsister to this past, but more and more, he was beginning to see this place as a bastardization of his own reality, of his home. Things here were _worse_, if such a thing was possible. The enemy was so powerful. The future of the earth depended on the likes of such a man as Vegeta, the proud prince who would rather destroy his allies than fight alongside them. And Goku…was he all that Trunks had thought? Was he so invincible, so heroic? Did he even have a plan?

And then, of course, the conversation he'd had with young Gohan as Mr. Popo had readied the time chamber.

"_So," Trunks said, trying to get the boy's mind off the situation as they sat around. "I'll bet you're excited to get a new brother or sister." _I'll just let them be surprised, _he reckoned._

"_What?" Gohan asked, startled. "What're you talking about, Trunks?"_

_Trunks frowned. "Your mother…she's having a baby."_

_The young boy frowned back, shaking his head slowly. "No, she's not. She would've told me."_

"_She's…not?"_

"_Huh-uh. I would definitely know." Gohan looked pensively at his feet. "And besides…if that was true, there's no way she'd be letting my dad fight. Not after he already died when I was little."_

"_Oh," Trunks answered, a million thoughts running through his head. He snapped back to reality when he heard Gohan laugh._

"_Why would you think that, anyway, Trunks?" _

_He racked his brain for some kind of excuse…anything…"For some reason, I thought I heard your dad talking about a baby…but, um…I guess it was just…baby Trunks." _He's too smart to believe that.

"_Ohhhh – yeah, that's probably what he was talking about. Maybe he was talking about how weird it is that there're two Trunkses!" Gohan grinned._

_Trunks blinked. _I guess he's still just a kid, though._ He forced a smile. "You're probably right_."

Somehow, by coming back to the past and interrupting the timeline, he had done the unthinkable. He had erased Ada. Trunks, kneeling, stared at the blood dripping down his hand. _He had erased Ada_. There was no other explanation. He had gone over the timing in his head a million times. Chi Chi would be pregnant by now. Very pregnant. There would be no hiding it. But…she wasn't. Which meant that even if she had conceived a child, it had not happened at the same time as in the future. Which meant that any possible addition to the Son family, now or ever, would not be Ada. It made Trunks feel sick.

Yet, _he_ had been born in this time. _No, not me. Trunks_. Every time his mind jumped back to that argument, Trunks had to remind himself that just because that baby was Trunks, the son of Bulma and Vegeta, it was not _him_. He had always assumed that he would exist in this timeline just as he did in his own, but that wasn't necessarily true. This Trunks could grow up to be…anyone. In his meddling, then, he had effectively taken himself out of the world as well. At least, the world as the inhabitants of this time would know it.

He was out of place here. He saw himself as a sort of hologram being projected onto this world. To these people, he was not reality.

He could not die here.

As Trunks stood, his mind turned to Ada yet again. What would she say if she saw him like this, pounding his fists against the floor like a child? What would she do if she knew of his despair? He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and grimaced. Somehow, he had to survive. _You're going to save the world_, she had told him. He would not abandon her to hide underground for the rest of her life. He would not let her live the rest of her days running.

xxx

_Ada took a deep breath and pushed her mother's bedroom door open. She had heard the woman's gentle sobs from her own room and felt impelled to do something about it, feeling that it was somehow her fault. Stepping into the dimly-lit room, Ada whispered, "Mom?"_

_Chi Chi, who had been sitting on the side of the bed with her face in her hands, turned to look at her guest. "What are you doing in here?" she asked, wiping her eyes quickly as though her daughter had just discovered that she had been crying._

"_I just…I wanted to say I'm sorry. For getting into a fight. I shouldn't have hit Trunks back. I shouldn't have said what I did. It was really stupid." Ada shifted awkwardly. She wasn't sorry, not really. She hated Trunks. And he had punched her first. And all of those things he'd said to her…_

"_He probably deserved it," Chi Chi replied, waving the apology away with her hand and shaking her head. Ada blinked, mouth slightly open. Was her mother being serious? Did Chi Chi simply want to get her off her guard before starting in on her inevitable tirade?_

"_W-what?" Ada asked, stepping further into the dim room._

"_Bulma said he hasn't been himself since…your brother…it just wouldn't surprise me if he said something to make you angry. And sometimes," Chi Chi wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "you just want to punch someone, you know?" She sniffled and looked at her daughter with an emotion that Ada did not recognize. It almost seemed like…no…but maybe…_understanding_._

"_Mom…" Ada crept over the side of the bed on which her mother was sitting. "Are you feeling okay?"_

_Excepting the occasional fit of sobbing, since Gohan's death, Chi Chi had been like a paper doll. Her face was constantly fixed in an unreadable expression, her eyes cloudy and far away. Each of her movements, each of her words came from reflex alone. There was no life left there. Just a shell, and a fragile one at that. The woman sitting before Ada now was…unrecognizable. _

"_Yes," Chi Chi responded. And she smiled. It was barely there, but it crossed her lips all the same. A real, genuine smile. "I'm fine. I really am." And Ada knew that it was the truth. For the first time since Gohan had died, her mother was something like okay. Ada, wide-eyed, her hands clasped in front of her chest, stood there in silence, looking at her mother. After several moments, Chi Chi frowned and grabbed her daughter's hand. She pulled her onto the bed and then fingered her black locks._

"_Oh, Ada. What did I do to your hair? You had such beautiful hair…" Another tear rolled down Chi Chi's cheek as she studied Ada's hacked-off tresses. "I'm so sorry…Ada, I'm so sorry."_

"_It's okay," the girl lied, touching one of her mother's hands. "It'll grow back."_

"_I've ruined everything," Chi Chi responded, shaking her head. "Haven't I?"_

"_No, Mama," Ada said before bursting into tears. "No, you didn't." She threw her arms around her mother's neck and clung to her desperately. She felt Chi Chi hug her and kiss her head. Still crying silently, Ada tucked her head under her mother's chin and let Chi Chi run her fingers through what remained of Ada's hair._

"_I'll fix it," Chi Chi said softly. "Tomorrow, I'll fix it. I'll fix it all." Ada said nothing. She couldn't find the words._

_The two stayed like that for some time, rocking slightly back and forth, regaining their composure. Ada never loosed her arms from around her mother, and she wondered if she would be able to when the time came. No one had held her in so long…_

"_You were his dream, you know," Chi Chi finally whispered._

_Ada furrowed her brown in confusion but said nothing._

"_Your father. You were his dream," her mother clarified, her voice low and kind. "I really hadn't thought about having another baby before he brought it up."_

_Ada frowned at first. She disliked hearing about her father; besides, she knew all she cared to about him. Even Gohan hadn't spoken of him in front of Ada, probably because it made her brother feel all the more alone. _

"_But he wanted it, and I wouldn't have dreamed of saying no to that smile." Chi Chi sighed and hugged Ada more tightly. "I wish he could have seen you, just once. Just to see how beautiful you are. And strong. And everything he ever wanted."_

"_I love you, Ada," Chi Chi said, kissing the top of her daughter's head. Ada fumbled for a response. When had her mother last said those words to her? How many years had it been? She began to cry again, burying her face in her mother's shoulder. _

"_I love you too, Mama."_

_They lay down soon after, exhausted from the day and all of the tears it had brought. For the first time since she was an infant, Son Ada fell asleep in her mother's warm arms. And for the first time since her brother had been stolen away from her, she felt safe._

xxx

After cleaning and bandaging his hand, Trunks spent the rest of the day in meditation, as Ada had taught him. The further his mind wandered and the deeper he delved into his thoughts, the more he began to see things clearly. And not just those things that made up his reality. He allowed himself to peek into the future – or the future as he imagined it – of his own time.

Ada had said that he would save the world, but she'd never dared to imagine what that would look like. Truth be told, neither had he. No one ever really thought about a future without the androids. It was too distant to picture clearly. Yet, as Trunks sat in the middle of the void that was his temporary home, he let himself consider the possibility for the first time in his life.

He would ask Ada to marry him…beg her if it came to that (although he hoped it didn't). They would build a house out in the country, where she would feel at home. They would have a garden of nothing but flowers – growing anything edible would only remind Ada of the past – and he would pick a fresh bouquet for her every morning. They would lie in the grass and fall asleep in the sun, and take walks in the rain. And they would build a new world. And she would be _happy_.

xxx

That evening, Trunks, a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist, was walking from the shower to his bed when he suddenly heard his father break the hours-long silence.

"What could possibly take you so long, boy?" Vegeta snarled. Mouth open slightly for lack of a reply, Trunks looked over at him. Vegeta narrowed his eyes and frowned.

"You were simply wasting your time in there," he said as he nodded his head toward the bathroom. "If you plan to stay here, you will not dawdle like a child. You will eat, sleep, and train, and any other necessary activity will be completed quickly- not a moment is to be lost. You will be in bed by nine p.m. and awake by five. I will have no child of mine treating this like some sort of holiday. Are you listening?" He raised his voice with the question as he saw Trunks look down at his hands, which were holding his towel up. The younger warrior snapped his head back up and nodded obediently.

"Good," his father replied, turning back to his own bed before spitting out one last warning. "And you will leave me to myself. No exceptions or excuses."

With that, the prince got into his bed and shut the curtains around it. Trunks stood for a moment looking at the spot where his father had just been standing, and he gripped his towel angrily. _I'm 20 years old!_ he seethed. _I've got a life of my own- I can take care of myself! I'm no child…certainly not _your_ child._

He tossed the towel onto one of the chairs of the nearby kitchen table and picked up his boxers off the floor. After pulling them on, Trunks ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath. He looked to the sky- or what would have been the sky if he weren't in a room containing a strange separate dimension from the one he knew. The white light of the chamber, its source completely unknown, was beginning to dim. The hour hand of the room's large clock, he noticed, pointed precisely to the number nine. Nighttime, he supposed. Or at least its comparable alternate-dimension counterpart.

Trunks pulled back the covers of his own bed and climbed in, shutting the curtains around him. He sat for a minute with his knees halfway pulled to him and surveyed the palms of his hands. They were terribly dry and somewhat cracked, he observed, and then he smiled. Ada commented on that very thing nearly every time she held his hand. Each time, she offered him lotion without fail, but he always refused. He made her think it was because he didn't want to smell like Pomegranate Paradise, which was true to an extent, yes. More than that, however, he wanted to make sure that his hands felt the same way the next time she laced her fingers with his, just so he could watch her examine his skin with concern. It wasn't as though she didn't constantly let him know how she cared for him, it was just something about the way she brushed her porcelain fingers across his palm and looked up at him. Just picturing it made his heart grow sore. As Trunks shook himself out of the small reverie, he frowned. At that moment, sitting alone in the strange bed after listening to his father chastise him for the length of his shower, facing the reality of the coming year with no respite in sight but rather great danger after they emerged from the Room of Spirit and Time, Trunks realized that he had never felt- no, had never _been_- more utterly alone.

He lay down on the bed, propping himself up on his elbow and grabbing his Capsule Corp. jacket from off the floor. Every possession he had in this time and place was in the front left pocket of this single piece of clothing. Trunks opened the pocket flap and reached in after briefly surveying the immediate area for a safe spot in which to put his belongings. He decided on storing his things under his very pillow so that they would be close to him. After pulling out his Dyno-Caps case, Trunks flipped it open to double check everything. He scanned the two rows of capsules. Aero-car, repair kit, mini refrigerator, clothing, time machine. _Everything in order there_, he thought as he stashed it beneath his pillow.

Next out of the pocket came a four-by-six photograph, an afterthought, really- something he had noticed laying on his dresser and grabbed at the last minute- of Ada. He wasn't sure when the picture had been taken or even who had taken it. His mother, maybe? But when? The forest was in the background, and there was sun shining on the girl's face as she smiled at the photographer. It was the perfect sort of picture, in Trunks' opinion- informal, taken on a whim- and Ada had a simple loveliness about her.

After several minutes, Trunks turned to put the picture under his pillow but stopped when he noticed a black smudge on the pads of his fingers. It looked like ink, but he couldn't remember having been around any. He flipped the picture over curiously to find, quite surprisingly, a note written on the back. Pulling it closer to his face, he realized that the message was written in Ada's flowing script.

_I love you._

As quickly as the note began, it ended. Trunks read it at least twenty times over as he lay there.

"Ada," he breathed, running his fingers across her words while trying not to smudge them. "I love you, too."

xxx

Ada awoke with a start. She blinked several times and looked to her left, then her right. Bulma stood above her, one hand still resting where she had tapped Ada on the shoulder.

"That doesn't look like a very comfortable pillow," Bulma smiled wanly. Ada looked back at the book on the table where her head had been. When had she fallen asleep? What time was it? She jumped up with a start.

"Is he–"

"No," Bulma interrupted, frowning. "Nothing yet. But that doesn't mean you should stay up all night waiting."

"Look who's talking," Ada quipped, trying unsuccessfully to hide the nervousness that was steadily creeping back through her veins.

"Hey now," Bulma managed, trying to do the same. "For your information, I've been in bed for hours. I just happened to wake up and thought I would check on you." She was lying. Ada could see it in her eyes. Bulma would never go to bed and sleep soundly with her son fighting an insanely powerful pair of monsters in another dimension.

"Well…thanks." She rubbed her eyes. There was nothing else to say, really.

"Go to bed, sweetie. Trying to keep yourself awake isn't going to help." Bulma rubbed a hand across her back and then nodded toward the hallway. Ada said nothing but gave Bulma what smile she could. The two then walked toward the other side of the basement, parting as Ada crept into Trunks' room and Bulma continued onto her own. Ada tiptoed across the floor, doing her best not to make a sound…

…until she realized that there was no one in bed that she had to worry about waking. She undressed and rifled through Trunks' drawers for something to wear to bed. She settled on the two thinnest, oldest pieces of clothing she could find: his favorites. She slipped on the ancient Capsule Corporation t-shirt and holey plaid boxers and then got in bed. Ada instinctively rolled over to the right side of the bed – her side – and laid her hand upon the pillow next to her. Cold.

_Back before dinnertime_. She gulped. She wouldn't cry – that would be ridiculous.

"Ridiculous," she whispered, her eyes watering. If he didn't come back–

No. None of that. He would come back. He promised. Maybe he would return while she was sleeping. Maybe she would wake up to see his face beside her. Ada had every reason to hope.

But she cried herself to sleep anyway.


	21. I Know

CHAPTER 20

"_Yes. Yeah. Purple. No, more like a lavender. Just past his ears. What? I guess…about 5'8"or so."_

_Ada's trembling hand made the phone shake against her ear. She turned and walked back across the kitchen, following the same path she had been pacing for the last twenty minutes. Chi Chi had been a bit out of sorts lately, so Ada had sent her off to the city for a visit with Bulma. Ada, meanwhile, was taking care of things around the house. If everything wasn't spic-n-span when Chi Chi returned, she would spend weeks lecturing her daughter about how she was never going to find a husband if she couldn't keep a home in order. The young woman had been folding a set of sheets when the radio had suddenly switched from its characteristic silence to a hurried emergency broadcast. Chereville, a tiny hamlet not half an hour south of her home, was under attack. _

_Ada had immediately run to the phone to call Bulma. By some stroke of luck, the phone lines were working. The conversation had gone something like, "Is he–" "He just left" "But–" "I couldn't stop him, Ada." Thus, for the last hour, Ada had been dialing every Chereville number she could find in the phonebook for the Eastern District. The emergency lines were down, of course, so she had begun calling random homes. She had gotten hold of a few people, mostly frightened citizens who had holed up in their houses. None of them had seen Trunks._

"_I realize you don't have the manpower right now. Just…please, keep an eye out for–"_

_Ada turned toward the front door, wide-eyed with fear, as the knob began to turn. A moment later, a very bloodied Trunks was leaning against the doorframe, hardly able to support his own weight._

"_Oh…oh my God…" She dropped the phone without even realizing she had done so and ran to the man standing before her. He collapsed into her arms just as she reached the threshold of the home. Ada caught him around the middle, holding him to her. His head lolled against her right shoulder. Oblivious to the "Hello? Miss?" coming from the telephone receiver on the floor, Ada walked Trunks over to the couch, where he sat with a thud, wincing._

"_Hey," he managed, coughing. _

"_You…" Ada brushed his hair from his brow and began to do a wound count. "I can't believe you–"_

"_Can we talk about this later?" Trunks interrupted. He was beginning to fall sideways on the couch, slowly losing consciousness._

"_Yes. When we do, I'm going to yell. Just fair warning," Ada replied, sitting down next to him. She pulled his head into her lap with shaking hands. "Lay down."_

"_I thought…that maybe you were gone for good this time," she said quietly, looking down at him and stroking his hair. _

_Trunks looked several inches in front of his face at Ada's knee. She had on her orange training pants._

"_You were…" he coughed and inhaled deeply. "You were going to come?"_

"_Of course."_

"_I like the way you think," he tried to laugh, but it hurt his ribs terribly._

"_I know."_

"_I mean–"_

"_I know what you mean," Ada said as she felt his breathing relax._

_His eyes half closed, Trunks took her hand and squeezed it lightly. "I'm sorry."_

_Ada felt some of her anger subside. A tear rolled down her cheek. "I know." _

xxx

When Vegeta awoke the next morning, he was surprised to find the adult version of his son apparently already washed, dressed, and fed, because the boy was nowhere in sight. He surveyed the living area quizzically before seeing a magnificent blast of energy some ways in the distance. The prince would never admit it, but he still had trouble tuning into the boy's _ki_ signature. Perhaps, he mused, it was because he instinctively searched for his infant son's energy instead of that of the grown man from the future. It puzzled him how very different they were, same person or not.

Vegeta let out a small grunt of approval before stalking off to the bathroom to ready himself for the first full day of training in the chamber. Maybe the half-breed wouldn't be completely useless after all.

Trunks, meanwhile, sporting a pair of the maroon training _gi_ laid out in the washroom for him and his father, had been at it for going on an hour. A rather sizeable pool of sweat had formed on the ground beneath him as he, hovering about four feet in the air, went through the grueling motions of pushing himself until his body felt like it would rip in two. Trunks continued his training for the next six hours, attempting to cut the time between his punches and kicks to mere nanoseconds, until the clock back at the living area gave several short chimes to announce midday.

The young man let himself drop to the ground on all fours, panting and using his forearm to wipe sweat from his face. Noon. Half of one day. Half of one of the next 363 days. Days that he would spend desperately trying to push himself to the next level. Trunks shivered, half from the thought of the ensuing year and half from the strikingly sudden drop in temperature. He stood and, wrapping his arms around himself for some warmth, began walking toward the noise of clock. By the time he had reached the pantry, a terrible gust had kicked up. The Room of Spirit and Time felt like it was perched on a mountaintop during a mid-winter storm. As Trunks ate his hastily-made sandwich, his body heat all but melted away. He shoved the rest of his lunch down and journeyed- still quite hungry- back out into the endless white abyss.

Summoned again by the chime of the clock, Trunks retreated to the living area at seven p.m., every muscle in his body throbbing, his clothing completely soaked through with a whole day's worth of sweat. He began to walk tiredly toward the bathroom when a calloused voice broke the almost-24-hour silence.

"First, we eat. You will wash later." Vegeta stood behind him at the pantry. Without looking back at him, Trunks clenched his fists and gritted his teeth as he fought the urge to tell his father that he would do as he liked. Instead, he went to the pantry and began pulling out the necessary ingredients for a quick but large batch of noodles with vegetables. His father, Trunks noted curiously, had made his way back out into the open space. Perhaps the prince had decided to take his dinner later. The young man shrugged and put a pot on the stove to boil.

Thirty minutes and three vats of steaming food later, Trunks sat down at the dinner table and began voraciously consuming his feast. Bulma had always commented on how her son had his father's appetite. About that time, Vegeta, sniffing the air hungrily, returned to the kitchen. He stopped short and eyed his future son along with what he believed to be a rather miniscule amount of food.

"Boy!" he barked, making Trunks jump slightly. "Where is my dinner?"

Trunks hardened his eyes the slightest bit and fought away the smirk that was tugging at his lips. "You haven't made it yet," he replied coldly.

Vegeta scowled. "You were making it, brat!" he shot back.

"I don't know what would give you that idea. You told me to leave you alone. I am." Trunks turned away from his father and finished off his dinner. Vegeta, his mouth open in shock at the boy's insolence, didn't move for several moments. After the younger warrior put his dirty dishes in the sink and set off for the washroom, Vegeta let out a low growl. Where was the boy who was desperate to please his father? What happened to the obedient Trunks that had followed him across a wasteland and sat patiently behind him for three days as the prince stared off into the sky? What about the forlorn kid from the hellish future who ached for his father's affection?

Suddenly, it hit Vegeta. All of those parts of Trunks were still within him. He simply was not allowing them to show through. His loyalty to the Prince of Saiyans had gotten him nowhere, so he was hardening himself. He was out to beat Vegeta at his own game.

This realization brought a pleased smirk to Vegeta's lips, the kind seen only when there was a new enemy to be destroyed, a new challenge to be overcome.

_Touché, boy. Touché. _

xxx

_One of Trunks' arms over her shoulder, Ada made her way to the bathroom. Though she could easily support his weight, the going was slow. Trunks had stumbled into her home two days prior, beaten to a bloody pulp. One of his legs had gotten broken in the fight, and his attempts to limp out of the rubble of the town caused the frail bones to shatter. In other words, he could hardly move. Walking was certainly out of the question, at least without Ada's help. Ada had inspected the wounded man, who was still half-covered in dirt that had adhered to his skin from his own sweat and blood, and decided that he was past due for a bath. She had filled the tub and was now leading Trunks to a seat on the lid of the toilet. _

"_So, you can rest your leg up here," she motioned to the edge of the tub, "to keep your cast dry. When you're done, just pull the drain plug. I'll leave a towel right here, so it's easy for you to reach. And then just yell when you're ready to get out."_

_Trunks nodded, a frown across his face. Ada pushed a lock of purple hair from his brow._

"_Hey, now," she soothed. "You'll be fixed up before you know it, and we'll never have to speak of your needing help performing basic tasks again." She smiled, but Trunks shot her a rather nasty look in return. She was trying to lighten the mood, of course, but getting beaten by the androids yet again had sent Trunks into an angry, defeated state from which he had yet to escape. He had hardly spoken in the last two days. Every time he had had to ask for help doing something, his mood grew even dourer. _

_While Ada understood his frustration, she was growing very impatient with his pride. It was a part of Trunks that didn't often show, and she very much disliked it. Besides, he had brought the injury on himself. She had told him _so many times_…_

"_Alright, then. I'll leave you to it," Ada said, rather more shortly than she had meant to, and left._

_Some thirty minutes later, Ada heard a loud CLUNK. Alarmed, she hopped off the couch and darted to the bathroom. She knocked anxiously on the door. What if he'd fallen and injured himself further?_

"_Trunks? What happened?"_

_She heard a sort of grunt._

"_Trunks? Did you fall?"_

"_I'm…fine," came a strained voice from the other side of the door._

"_It doesn't sound like it."_

"_Just…I said I'm fine!"_

Time to lose the attitude, mister_. "Yeah, of course. I'm coming in."_

"_No, d–"_

_Ada pushed open the door and then realized very quickly that she shouldn't have. Trunks was sprawled ungracefully across the tub, half-standing, half-bending over to reach the towel she had left on the floor. He could not do both and keep his balance, however, and came crashing down on the bathtub floor within seconds._

"_Oh–" Ada started to step into the room before Trunks whipped his head around to face her, his expression a mix of fury and embarrassment._

"_I said I was fine!" He shot at her, flushing red. Ada stopped, confused for a moment before the situation caught up with her. In her haste to save Trunks from crippling the other half of his body, she had not noticed that he was stark naked. She immediately averted her eyes, placing a hand between her face and the bathroom scene._

"_Oh, dammit, I'm sorry–" Turning almost as red as Trunks, she fumbled for something to say._

"_I didn't tell you to come in!" came the angry voice from the tub._

_Somewhere between apologetic and annoyed, Ada began to leave the bathroom. Just as she was shutting the door behind her, Trunks spoke again._

"_Hey…I…" The anger was gone. The shame wasn't. "Could you…I…can't reach the towel…" He finished lamely, stopping Ada._

_Attempting to continue to look away, Ada backed up and grabbed the towel. She stretched her arm out toward the tub, and Trunks grabbed it._

"_Thanks," he managed. Ada again made her exit and closed the door._

_She returned five minutes later and knocked timidly. After that lovely treatment, she wanted to make him crawl back to the bedroom. His pride was already so injured, however, she feared that it might completely perish if he were made to do such a thing. "Are you decent?"_

"_Yes," he replied after a moment. She opened the door to find him sitting on the edge of the tub, his towel wrapped around his waist more tightly than a corset. He didn't meet her eyes. _Ashamed of needing help, ashamed of falling down in the bathtub, ashamed of being seen naked…let's just add ashamed of treating me like shit to the list.

"_Ready?" He nodded in reply. Ada helped him make the long trek down the hall and into her bedroom. She dropped him on the foot of the bed and found a pair of clean clothes, which she proceeded to toss at him. In no mood to talk to him, she then started back out the door._

"_Ada…" he said timidly. She stopped and turned to face him._

"_Yes?" she asked, her voice laced with frustration._

"_I'm…sorry…for yelling at you. I didn't…I just…I wasn't expecting you to barge in, is all," Trunks said, looking down at his lap._

"_I forgive you," Ada softened. "I just don't understand why it was such a big deal in the first place. How long have I known you? How long have we been dating?"_

"_Yeah, I know…I made something out of nothing," he conceded, stealing a glance at her before returning his eyes to his lap._

_She frowned and cocked her head to one side. "But…it wasn't 'nothing' to you, was it?"_

_Trunks looked up at her but said nothing._

"_You can't stand being vulnerable," Ada supplied. "Whether that means being temporarily disabled…or unexpectedly seen in all of your glory. Am I getting somewhere?" His eyes widened._

"_Glory?" Trunks asked, a small smile creeping over his face. "Did you enjoy it that much?"_

_Ada flushed. "It's an expression!" she shot back before covering her eyes with her hand. Trunks burst into laughter for the first time in days. _

"_No more free shows," he added, reaching his hand out and grabbing her forearm. He pulled her to him and buried his face in her stomach. Ada pushed a hand through his damp hair and held his head against her. He pulled up her shirt the slightest bit and planted a kiss just above her navel. _

"_Get dressed. Mom will have dinner ready soon," she said softly, running her hand down the back of his neck before bending down to kiss him._

xxx

After a steamy (but, Vegeta noted, exceptionally quick) shower, Trunks emerged from the bathroom with damp hair and a towel around his waist. He put on his boxers and other set of clothes and put the towel and his training _gi_ in the wash; his father, he noted with a grimace, seemed ignorant of the existence of a washing machine. Of course, it had been only 48 hours since they had entered the chamber. What judgments he made about Vegeta could be completely incorrect…but the purple-haired warrior doubted it. Brushing all thoughts from his mind, Trunks commenced his evening exercises. He stretched for half an hour, the pain from the day's workouts still piercing him to the core, and then found a quiet spot out in the open white space to sit. He assumed the lotus position and worked to clear his mind as best he could, concentrating on his _ki_ and deepening his dependence on and control over it. This was something he had only taken up in the last year and only on Ada's advice. She made sure to meditate every evening and at least once during each of her training sessions. She had a natural gift for controlling her _ki_ but, under her brother's tutelage, had worked for a very long time to build it. Trunks hoped to achieve something of what she had in that area.

He finished his meditation and returned to the living area, deciding to turn in early. It had, after all, been an exceptionally grueling first two days. Trunks stripped back down to his boxer shorts and readied himself for bed before hearing his father, probably shoveling down a bedtime 'snack', raiding the pantry. Thinking that perhaps this would be a good chance to gauge how Vegeta was responding to their earlier conversation, the young man decided to take a seat at the kitchen table and munch down an apple.

Vegeta, meanwhile, completely disregarded the presence of his son. Or, at least, Trunks assumed that's what he was doing. The older warrior had snatched a jar of what appeared to be peanut butter and was consuming it by the spoonful, his back leaned against the counter. Perhaps, Trunks ventured, his father had merely taken their "conversation" earlier to mean that Trunks hoped for silence between the two of them. It certainly seemed that way. He rose to toss the core of his apple into the trash.

"I suppose you think that we ought to _get to know each other_, boy."

Trunks stopped suddenly and blinked at his father.

"What?" he managed, the apple core still dangling from his hand. He wondered if he had ever been more shocked in his life.

"Do you make use of your ears or are they purely decorative?" spat the Saiyan prince.

"I…they…" Trunks stammered, gulping. His father was speaking to him…his _father_…was _speaking_ to him.

"You're quite the conversationalist." Vegeta sneered, shoving another glob of peanut butter into his mouth.

Trunks regained his composure, narrowing his eyes somewhat. There had to be some other motive here. He hadn't known his father for very long, but unless the man was feeling particularly feverish, there was no reason for him to have initiated a conversation. Well, he could be a wise ass, too, as it so happened.

"I usually am. You'll appreciate how difficult it is to hold a conversation with someone who has no personality, though."

"Ha. Not bad, kid," Vegeta laughed. "So I suppose that you're not willing to have a heart-to-heart?"

"Well, old man, if you need to get some things off your chest, I would be happy to let you cry on my shoulder," Trunks shot back, forcing a grin. No matter what sort of front he was putting up, he felt exceedingly uncomfortable. This was going nowhere good.

"No, no – I just wanted to…learn more about you, that's all. Considering you're my son, you know."

"I'm sure your curiosity is killing you."

"It is. You're surprisingly witty for a pre-pubescent half-breed."

"I'm twenty-one," Trunks returned, rather more sharply than he intended.

"You can't fault me for having trouble discerning things about you. That ridiculous hair makes you look like a child."

Trunks balled one hand into a fist. _Easy, easy. He's just trying to get a rise out of you_.

"You didn't seem to mind the colorful hair on your wife."

"That harpy is not my wife!" Trunks knew that, of course. He also knew that it would get Vegeta's blood boiling a little, and he was right.

"Sorry. I forgot. In my timeline, she was still with you when the androids killed you. I don't suppose you'll keep using her after we've finished off Cell, will you?" Trunks spat at his father. Vegeta responded with a low growl.

"Don't speak about what you don't understand. At your age, you've probably never been with a woman for more than a night," Vegeta replied nonchalantly, finishing off the peanut butter.

Trunks, taken aback, turned his gaze from his father. Vegeta looked back at his son, a smile creeping over his lips.

"What's that? Nothing to say?"

Trunks opened his mouth to reply but found that he couldn't. _Oh, Kame – think of something. Anything_.

"Wait," Vegeta said, somewhat more loudly. His smile widened. "Don't tell me – no – you've never been with a woman, have you, boy?"

Trunks turned toward his father again, struggling for a comeback. "I…if…it depends on what you mean by 'been with'…" _What? Why did you say that?_

"HA!" Vegeta threw his head back, roaring in laughter. "You're a CHERRY, aren't you, boy?" He threw his hands onto his stomach as if he simply couldn't contain his glee.

Trunks' face turned the brightest shade of red imaginable, a mixture of anger and…well…shame tearing at his stomach. His mouth hung slightly open. He had never been more embarrassed – or speechless – in his life.

Vegeta roared with laughter. "I should have thought as much! I mean, let's have a look at you: a tiny kid with a mop of hair that looks like a flower bed. It's no wonder. Ha!"

Trunks balled up his sweaty hands and searched his mind for anything to say…_anything at all_.

"Of course, you were raised by a woman–"

"At least I'm no murderer," Trunks managed, and with a great deal more conviction than he felt.

The older man's eyes suddenly blazed. The _audacity_…

Vegeta frowned, and looked, Trunks thought, absolutely terrifying. It took the young man's best effort to maintain eye contact. They stood there in silence for some time, each refusing to back down.

"You can call me 'father' all you want, boy," Vegeta finally said in low, menacing tone, "but true Saiyans know that bastards have no place in the lives of their sires. You are wasting my time and your own by being here. You are a distraction at best, and a needy pest at worst. My power infinitely overshadows yours. And I have no time for this idle chit-chat." Vegeta tossed the empty peanut butter jar into the trash, knocking the can several feet away with the force of the throw. He promptly left the kitchen – and his son – and went to bed.

xxx

_**Author's Note:**_ My dear readers, thank you so much for your support. Your reviews absolutely keep me going. I must admit to thieving part of a scene from this story from _Uncharted 3_; I took another idea from **"On the Mend"** by **Woman of Rohan**. If you're a fan of _Uncharted_, check it out. Also, **Draquia** is working on **Lovefools**, a Krillin/18 fic, again! It's coming along wonderfully, so be sure to give it a read. Thank you again, and please do continue to send in those reviews.


	22. Pink Elephants

CHAPTER 22

"_That's just…that's just so exciting, Jen," Ada said, her smile stretching the width of her face. She laughed at the response that came from the other end of the phone line._

_Trunks eyed her curiously from his spot on the sofa. No one except his mother received phone calls – and those were almost always people asking if she could repair some appliance or other. In fact, when the phone in the Son home had rung, Ada and Trunks both looked at it in terror. The androids, they had assumed, were at it again. Maybe Bulma was hurt. The two had looked at one another, dreading what news waited on the other end of that receiver. It had taken a, "Are you going to get that, Ada?!" from Chi Chi – who was trying to take a nap in her bedroom – to shake them out of their trance._

_And it was just…a friend. Or at least, Trunks guessed it was a friend. Perhaps an acquaintance. He'd not seen Ada socialize since they were in their mid-teens. After the schools had closed, there hadn't exactly been a wealth of people their age to befriend._

"_Of course!" Ada exclaimed. "Just let me know, and I'll be there."_

_Another pause as Ada listened cheerily to the voice on the phone._

"_Thank you for calling," the young woman said kindly, a sad sort of smile crossing her lips. "I know it's been forever…but I really appreciate that you thought of me. Yes. Sure. Keep me updated, alright? Bye." Ada looked at the receiver for a moment before setting it back in its cradle._

"_So…?" Trunks raised an eyebrow at her. Ada seemed somewhat lost as she slowly sat down next to him on the couch._

"_It was a girl I knew…know," she corrected herself. "Jen Baille. Her grandparents used to live a mile or so away from us. I haven't heard from her in…years." She shook her head in disbelief. "I assumed she was dead."_

_Trunks put a hand on her knee. "Old friend?"_

_Ada nodded. "She said that…I'm the only person she's been able to find. All of her friends from school, from her neighborhood…gone. Or lost. Or moved to Lowtown."_

"_Just calling to catch up?" Trunks asked suspiciously._

"_No, no." Ada shook her head. "I guess she got married some time ago, and she's…having a baby."_

"_She called someone she's not spoken to in years to tell her she's pregnant?"_

"_She asked if I would be the godmother," Ada said quietly._

_Trunks' eyes widened. He was about to speak when Ada did:_

"_I can't believe she even thought of me. And that she called me. And that she's having a baby…in spite of all this." She gestured around vaguely, frowning. "It's so…strange."_

"_Yeah." Trunks nodded. "You don't see many kids running around these days. I think Rei was the last one I saw."_

_Ada smiled at the name of her old student. After the last attack on the city, Rei's family had chosen to move to Lowtown. Ada hadn't seen them since._

_The two sat in silence for some time, digesting the oddness of the situation._

"_Do you think," Ada asked, "that people will start having children again, once all this has passed?"_

_Ada turned to look at him. His arms were loosely folded, and he was gazing somewhat pensively at his knees. She liked to hear him talk about the ineffable post-android future; it made her feel more confident that he felt confident._

"_I've always assumed so," he replied. "Why not? That's what people usually do when things are normal, right? Get married, have babies, live happily ever after." _

"_So you've thought about it before?" Ada asked after a moment._

"_About what? About the future?"_

"_Erm…yes. About the future," she finished awkwardly. _

"_I've always thought about the future."_

"_And?" _

"_And what?"_

"_What do you think?"_

_Trunks chuckled for a moment at the question. "Well…I think about the cities looking like they do in the old pictures; about seeing a whole load of people in one place, enjoying themselves; about people coming out from their hiding places and seeing their friends and family who they assumed were dead…I think about it all the time."_

_Ada looked at him strangely for a moment before nodding. "Yeah. So do I."_

"_You're acting…strange. What's on your mind?" Trunks asked, looking at her with some concern._

"_Strange? No," she said, her cheeks coloring a little. _

"_We're not talking about the same thing, are we?" Trunks brushed a particle of something off her cheek._

"_What do you mean?"_

"_About the future. That's not what you meant, is it?"_

_Ada studied him for a moment, then folded her hands together and looked straight ahead._

"_I…no, it's not."_

"_What did you mean?"_

_Ada glanced at Trunks again before shaking her head nervously. "You know, I don't want to force this…it's…let's just forget about it, alright?"_

_Trunks cocked her head sideways and smiled mischievously. "Well now I'm just curious, so you're going to have to tell me."_

_Ada folded her hands and placed them in her lap. "You love me," she said, almost as though she were reassuring herself._

"_You know I do," he replied, squeezing her knee._

"_How…much?"_

"_What?" Trunks gave her a puzzled smile._

"_When all of this is over, when the androids are gone…then what?" Ada asked quietly. Trunks' eyes widened with sudden understanding. He wrestled one of her hands into his and looked at her intently._

"_Nothing will change," he said. "I'll still be right here. With you." He hesitated a moment, fumbling with his words. "For…forever, if you want."_

_Ada looked up at him, finally, and smiled uncharacteristically shyly. She squeezed his hand._

"_Do you promise?"_

_Trunks returned the smile and nodded._

xxx

Trunks awoke with a start, surprised to find his fist driven several inches into the wall next to his bed. He blinked and slowly pulled away his hand, rubbing his knuckle.

A dream.

He panted and wiped away the hair that was sticking to his forehead. There was no hint of light outside the curtain that guarded his bed – his haven – from the menacing eternity of the chamber. He lay his head back down, hoping to catch at least a few more hours of sleep. The next day was sure to be just as grueling as every other one from the previous six months.

But sleep did not come. He tossed about, feeling strangely warm considering how cool nights in the chamber tended to be. Trunks sat up, resting his forearms on his knees, and began to do what he did best these days…thought. He thought about the androids, picturing their faces. He thought about his mother, and about Chi Chi. Mostly, he thought about Ada. About her smile. About the curves of her body when she lay next to him. About his unending want for her. About how helpful she had ended up being to him without even realizing it.

He winced slightly. He was somewhat ashamed to admit it to himself, but there was nothing so potent as sexual frustration to lend fierceness and drive to one's fighting capabilities. And he still had six months to go. By the time he faced Cell, and the androids…he would have enough pent up self-denial to wipe out whatever stood in his way. And when he got back to Ada…

Except for the marriage bit. She would certainly still be concerned about that. As would he. He thought of the man sleeping only feet away from him and shuddered. Marrying Ada would be just one more step down the path opposite Vegeta's. Trunks worried at his desperation to do everything as differently as possible from his father, worried at his childhood psychological issues being a justification for marriage…but it was better than following the ruthless Saiyan, at any rate.

Trunks lay back, clenching his fists just to keep his hands from wandering elsewhere, and settled on a memory that would, he hoped, whisk him back to sleep.

xxx

"Trunks"

He heard a whisper right next to his ear, and on his neck he could feel the exhalation of the breath that accompanied it.

"Baby. You awake?" The hoarse voice seemed to get closer as the young man yawned and slowly made his way back to consciousness.

"Hm?" He muttered. "Yeah, yeah. 'M awake." Trunks turned over to face the figure lying next to him. Ada lay on her side, her hand propping up her head. Her hair fell in messy waves about her face, and her lacy tank top clung to her abdomen, but there were no signs of sleep in her eyes.

"I woke you up," she stated with a sigh. "I'm sorry."

Trunks shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "No, no. It's fine. Why're you awake?" He lifted one arm in the air, indicating that Ada take her place beneath it. She did, snuggling up against his chest, and he lowered it around her.

"Just couldn't sleep. I don't know. Just thinking, I guess."

"About what?" Trunks fought to keep his eyes open.

"I…had a dream…about us."

"Oh yeah? What kind of dream?"

Ada did not reply. Her face, Trunks noted, felt warm against his chest. The arm she had flung across his abdomen held tightly to him, fingers digging comfortably into his skin.

"The kind that makes you wake up feeling…needy," she finally said. Her voice hesitated on the last word.

Trunks grinned in the darkness, glad that she couldn't see him. "Something I can help with, perhaps?" he inquired, his eyes now fully open.

She propped herself up and looked into his eyes.

"I hate this," she said pointedly.

"What?"

"The boundaries. It seems s-" Before she could finish, Trunks had pressed his lips against hers and pulled her body to him. Still maintaining the contact, he pulled one of Ada's legs across his body and – rather roughly, she thought – placed her on top of him. She pulled away and sat atop him, looking down into his eyes.

"You're not helping, you know," she said flatly. Trunks gave her a devilish grin.

"Nice view from down here," he chuckled, placing his hands on her waist. "So tell me. In your dream…"

Ada raised an eyebrow. She didn't like that grin on his face, not one bit.

"…was it good?"

A scandalized Ada gave him a light slap on the cheek. He laughed and pulled her down so that she was flush against him. Again, he kissed her – this time until she smiled.

"Since when," Ada asked, "has the noble Trunks been able to talk about sex without stuttering and blushing, hm?"

"Well," Trunks replied, planting a kiss on her neck, "since you're around most of the time, and when you're around it's generally all that I _can_ think about, it's gotten a little easier."

She lay her head down on his chest, and he instinctively began to stroke her hair. "So how do you keep yourself…under control…so well."

"You're going to laugh," he said.

"Try me."

"Pink elephants."

"What?" Ada asked quizzically.

"When it gets to be too much, and I'm having trouble controlling my thoughts, I just think about pink elephants instead."

"You're right. I'm going to laugh at you," she said, doing just that.

"Laugh all you like, but it works!" he replied.

She skeptically raised an eyebrow at him.

"Think of it like this," he said with a smile "Have you ever been jumped in the middle of the night by the desperate man lying next to you?"

At that, Ada rolled her eyes and lifted herself from off Trunks. Smiling, she planted a quick, dry kiss on his lips before turning over to her own side of the bed and closing her eyes.

She took a deep breath.

Pink elephants.

xxx


End file.
